Antidote for Gelsemium elegans

Gelsemium elegans is not an alias for a particular plant, but a general term referring specifically to those highly poisonous plants that can cause strong reactions such as vomiting. For example, there are nearly 40 plants called guttate in different regions of my country, including wild star anise and green poisonous fennel of the Illicium family, greater celandine and Meconopsis ellipsoides of the Papaveraceae, wolfsbane of the Thymelaeaceae, Aconitum of the Ranunculaceae, and Tripterygium wilfordii of the Celastraceae. Among them, the Corydalis family has the largest number, with more than 21 species.

Among all the poisons, the most deadly one is Gelsemium elegans of the Loganaceae family. It is also one of the species that has caused the most accidental poisoning incidents in recent years. Gelsemium elegans has many nicknames, which are different in different parts of the country. "The leaves of Gelsemium are membranous, ovate, ovate-oblong or ovate-lanceolate, and their appearance is similar to many common climbing plants. For ordinary people, it is only easy to identify them during the blooming season." Shanggong Fazhi said that Gelsemium is slightly similar to honeysuckle tea, but the whole plant is hairless, the seeds are flattened oval or kidney-shaped, and the edges have irregular tooth-like membranous wings. It blooms red flowers from May to November and bears fruit from July to March of the following year.

Food poisoning symptoms

According to statistics, taking too much ginseng can cause strong reactions in the digestive tract, respiratory system and respiratory tract, and the intestines will become black and sticky. Symptoms of food poisoning include salivation, nausea, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing, fever, vomiting, foaming at the mouth, twitching, numbness of the limbs, muscle stiffness, shaking muscle fibers, hard tongue, slurred speech, restlessness, and arrhythmia.

Emergency measures

When the harm touches the central nervous system, it can cause the heart rate to slow down, speed up and become disordered, and cause symptoms such as cold limbs, pale face and low blood pressure. In the late stages of poisoning, it can cause muscle spasms, inspiratory muscle paralysis, suffocation, coma and shock, and ultimately even death from heart failure or respiratory failure. "Once a similar situation is found, medical treatment should be sought immediately. Vomiting and gastric lavage are the only ways to expel harmful substances. There is currently no antidote," said Xu Youkai. If time is urgent, you can first give the person who accidentally ingested Gelsemium elegans some goose blood, pig blood, or sheep blood. This has been proven to have certain effects in clinical medicine.