What is thalline?
Thallin is a metallic, gray and soft element. It enters the body through the skin, by inhalation or in food or drink.
If not detected early enough to stop the action with an antidote, it is fatal.
Thallin creeps into the body because its structure resembles potassium.
The body’s cells cannot distinguish between the two and therefore absorb the substance in the belief that it is potassium, which, among other things, is useful for fluid balance.
In the cells, thallin interferes with proteins and important metabolism.
Thallin breaks down cells
The toxin thallin attacks nerves and organs and kills over a long period of time.
Symptoms of thallium poisoning
The effects become apparent after two days and then as vomiting and diarrhea.
Thallin also causes damage to the nervous system after a few days so that the victim experiences pain, loss of sensation, memory lapses or mental retardation.
Due to nerve damage, victims have described the sensation of walking around on glowing coals. After two to three weeks the hair falls out and a week later the heart may give up.
A lethal dose of thallin is about one gram.
Thallin as a murder weapon
The substance’s long-term effects have made it especially handy and common for murder.
For example, a spy of the French secret service killed Félix-Roland Mournié, the separatist leader in the former colony of Cameroon in 1960 with this poison.
As an antidote to thallin, people use an iron-rich dye called “Berlin Blue”, which, taken daily and well-exposed, absorbs thallin and flushes it out of the body.
