This article covers Reader’s Digest…poisons used for healing. For instance physicians recently used arsenic trioxide in a trial with leukemia patients. Researchers achieved a remission of leukemia in 70% of cases. Arsenic normally is a powerful poison. But at the right dilution this healing effect in leukemia has less toxic side-effects than chemotherapy.
Dr. J. Michael McIntosh, a psychiatrist at the University of Utah, is researching the poisonous effect of a marine snail that attaches to and kills fish with a toxin. This poison is a powerful painkiller. It is several hundred times stronger than morphine, but is useful as it does not have any effect on the strength or functioning of muscles. This substance in the right diluted dose may one day be useful for the treatment of chronic pain syndromes.
The bacterium Clostridium botulinum produced a powerful toxin, which causes botulism. Neurologists and plastic surgeons are using this poison in a diluted form as “Botox” to inject into wrinkles of skin to make your face look younger. It is also used for chronic spastic muscle conditions like cerebral palsy or tardive dyskinesia.