Pontic honey

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Ponti shear honey or Toll honey or Toxic honey or Turkish Wild honey ( English also bitter honey , Bitter honey 'or mad honey , Toll honey') is a honey with high levels of toxic substances from the pollen and nectar of mostly Rhododendron ponticum which almost mono dominant in Undergrowth of the forests of certain parts of the southern Pontic region , here the Turkish Black Sea coast, occurs. Consumption can cause symptoms of poisoning such as nausea , vomiting or hallucinations in humans .

Effective ingredients

Molecular structure of grayanotoxin I.

The active ingredients of classic Pontic honey are grayanotoxins ( grayanotoxin I , andromedotoxin , rhomotoxin ) from the class of diterpenes , which are formed by various heather plants (including various rhododendron species such as Rhododendron arboreum and Rhodododendron campanulatum , or Kalmia species). The toxins are brought in by honey bees with the pollen and nectar of the plants and processed into honey. Since grayanotoxins also have an insecticidal effect, it is unclear why the bees do not poison themselves. Depending on the concentration of the honey's active ingredient, the consumption of 5 to 30 g of Pontic honey can cause symptoms of poisoning in people. The poison works by raising the sodium - Ruhepermeabilität electrically excitable membranes. More severe poisoning can cause circulatory weakness with heart rates below 40 min −1 and systolic arterial blood pressures below 70 mmHg, which without treatment can also lead to death. Atropine is effective as an antidote in these cases .

Historical reports

Historically, Pontic honey was first handed down by the Greek general Xenophon in his work Anabasis , whose army in 401 BC. Ate honeycombs with Pontic honey on the retreat after the lost battle at Kunaxa in the villages of the Black Sea coast. All the warriors who ate from the honeycombs lost consciousness, vomited and developed diarrhea , none of them could stand upright. Those who ate little of the honey were completely drunk. The next day everyone was well again.

The Roman historian Strabon reports on a campaign by the Roman consul Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus against the Pontic king Mithridates VI. in the Third Mithridatic War , whose soldiers in the same area in the year 67 BC were given honeycombs with Pontic honey by the locals. After the soldiers were incapacitated, they were overpowered and defeated by the locals. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia and the Greek Pedanios Dioscurides in his work Materia Medica , both from the 1st century AD, report further details on the toxicity of Pontic honey .

Occasionally, poisoning by grayanotoxins from Pontic honey is also observed today, including some cases in Central Europe caused by imported Pontic honey from the Black Sea region.

Movie

In the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes , Holmes' antagonist Lord Blackwood used "crazy honey" to simulate his death by hanging during an investigation after his fake execution.

More poisonous honeys

In North America there are also occasional reports of poisonous honey from the native bay roses ( Kalmia angustifolia and Kalmia latifolia ). Another poisonous type of honey is known from New Zealand , the high proportions of which Tutin and Melliotoxin ( Hydroxytutin ) from the nectar of the Tuta plant ( Coriaria arborea ) can cause nausea and vomiting at a dosage of 1 mg.

literature

  • H. Krause: About the poisonous honey of Pontic Asia Minor . In: Natural Sciences . No. 14 , 1926, ISSN  0028-1042 , pp. 976-978 .
  • Eberhard Teuscher, Ulrike Lindequist: Biogenic Poisons: Biology - Chemistry; Pharmacology - toxicology; with 2500 structural formulas and 62 tables . Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8047-2438-9 , p. 177-180 .
  • Hans H. Wellhöner: About grayanotoxin (andromedotoxin, rhomotoxin) . Society for Toxicological and Forensic Chemistry ( PDF, 14 kB [accessed on May 18, 2010]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Werner von der Ohe: Poisonous honey . In: German bee journal . Deutscher Bauernverlag, March 2011, ISSN  0943-2914 , p. 32 (128) .
  2. ↑ David G. Spoerke Jr., Susan C. Smolinske: Toxicity of Houseplants. CRC Press, Boca Raton / Ann Arbor / Boston 1990, ISBN 978-0-8493-6655-0 , pp. 25-28 ( online ).
  3. ↑ a b c H. Desel, H. Neurath: Poisonings with "Pontic honey" . In: Toxichem + Krimtech, newsletter of the Society for Toxicological and Forensic Chemistry . No. 65 , 1998, pp. 63–64 ( PDF, 68 kB [accessed on May 18, 2010]).
  4. ^ R. Gerke, U. Fahrenkrog, H. Löllgen: Syncope in a young man of Turkish origin . In: The internist . No. 44 , 2003, ISSN  0020-9554 , p. 1308-1312 , doi : 10.1007 / s00108-003-1017-2 .
  5. ↑ http://www.uni-jena.de/data/unijena_/faculties/bio_pharm/ieu/ls_lmc/9.0.Kohlenhydratr.LM(1.Teil)%206.Sem.doc  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-jena.de  

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