What is the cause of arsenic poisoning

Arsenic poisoning should never be ignored, because it can easily cause painful cramps in the patient's limbs, or cause coma, weakened pulse, decreased blood pressure, and difficulty breathing, etc. In severe cases, the poisoned person may die within one or two days.

1. Arsenic poisoning is generally caused by oral administration. There are two types of symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning, namely paralytic and gastrointestinal. Among them, the gastrointestinal type is more common. Large amounts of arsenic entering the body can paralyze the central nervous system, causing painful spasms in the limbs, confusion, delirium, coma, rapid and weak pulse, low blood pressure, and difficulty breathing. Death may occur within a few hours due to the poison inhibiting the central nervous system. In this case, gastrointestinal symptoms may not appear in time or may be very mild. This is the symptom of paralysis. This symptom is quite common in real life. Arsenic poisoning presents gastrointestinal symptoms, with severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea occurring 1 to 2 hours, or even 15 to 30 minutes after taking the poison, which is very similar to cholera or severe gastroenteritis. The stool also becomes watery and contains blood, and may be accompanied by dehydration and shock. Generally, the poisoned person will die within one or two days. These are common symptoms of arsenic poisoning in daily life. In addition, inhalation of arsine gas can also cause acute poisoning, the main manifestation of which is hemolysis.

2. Ordinary people can be poisoned and show symptoms of poisoning if they take 0.01-0.05g of arsenic trioxide; taking 0.06-0.2g can be fatal; breathing in air containing 1mg/L of hydrogen arsenide for 5-10 minutes can cause fatal poisoning.

3. Ordinary people may suffer from chronic poisoning after being exposed to arsenic for several weeks. The symptoms include headache, insomnia, loss of appetite, indigestion, weight loss, multiple neuritis, sensory paralysis, motor nerve paralysis, optic nerve atrophy, thickening of the keratin layer of the palms and feet, etc.

4. If an autopsy is performed, it can be seen that the internal organs are congested and the punctate hemorrhages are extremely obvious; the blood in the heart is not coagulated and is dark red in color, with punctate hemorrhages under the inner wall of the left ventricle; the contents of the small intestine are light yellow loose stools or rice soup-like liquid, mixed with yellow precipitates (arsenic sulfide). For those who die after a few days, their heart, liver, kidneys, etc. will suffer from fatty degeneration or necrosis, and some may even develop acute yellow hepatic atrophy.

5. Arsenic can be transported through the placenta. The arsenic content in fetal tissue increases with gestational age. The concentration level in the bones, liver, skin and brain of full-term newborns is 2 to 4 times that of stillborn fetuses at 7 months. The results of the study of 101 women showed that the concentration of arsenic in the umbilical cord blood was the same as the concentration in the mother's blood.