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41 points

Venom vs poison

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom

Venom goes in a cut. Poison is swallowed. You can swallow some venom without harm.

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45 points

Poison is generic. Venom is specific to normal method of delivery (e.g. snakes and bees).

Swallowing venom may or may not hurt you. Probably not a great idea, but there’s a better chance you’ll be okay.

Getting a known poison stabbed/injected intravenously seems likely to be pretty effective, but it depends on the mode of action. Blood goes everywhere in the body, so it will likely find its target eventually.

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12 points

My understanding was that toxin is the generic term, poison is usually ingested and venom is delivered into the blood? But it gets often confused in everyday language, and is only accurate when talking about animals. Not a toxicologist, so I might be wildly wrong

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5 points

Now I’m curious what the most aggressive venom that can be ingested is

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5 points

I remember some years ago that a bar in California was serving shots with black widow spiders in them. So, apparently you can eat the venom from a black widow without issue, and they’re pretty dangerous spiders.

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5 points

Most of them would be denatured by stomach acidity but the risk of something like paradoxin finding a small route into your blood stream is too damn high.

When it comes to venom that is also used as a toxin in other species, though, and is a big killer of humans, the crown goes to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin which is used as both a poison against predators for things like pufferfish and a venom for things like the blue ringed octopus.

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33 points

Alternatively, his blade was not very deadly unless he got it in someone’s mouth.

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27 points

“Here, lick my knife.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Still no. Who puts a knife in their mouth? If you’re trying to poison me, maybe you should put poison on the rim of a stein and offer me some ale.”

“I’m the worst assassin ever…”

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27 points

That’s for poisonous vs venomous, but poison is a generic term, the substance won’t care how it got into your bloodstream.

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18 points

Yes, but he said it was coated in poison, not venom. Licking it was a proper way to administer the dose.

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1 point

Which makes a very odd choice for a knife.

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17 points

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poison

“a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism”

Poison doesn’t have to be swallowed

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