Shari_Ortiz
"Casto Bean"
Copyright © 2011 Shari M Ortiz. All Rights Reserved
I typed this all up so you could read it clearly
One autumn morning in 1978, communist defector and BBC journalist George Markov walked across Waterloo Bridge and stood waiting at a bus stop. He felt a painful jab in the back of his thigh and turned around in time to see a man pickup an umbrella, mumble and apology, and run away. Over the next few days, he developed a fever, had trouble speaking, began throwing up blood and finally went to the hospital, where he died.
The pathologist found hemorrhages in almost every organ of his body. He also found a small puncture mark on his Markov's thigh and a tiny metal pellet in his leg. The pellet contained ricin, the poisonous extract from the castor bean plant. Although KGB agents were suspected of the crime, no one has ever been charged of the infamous "umbrella murder"
Castor oil has been popular home remedy for a variety of ailments for centuries. (The ricin is removed during the manufacturing process.)A spoonful of the oil is an effective laxative. Castor oil packs are used externally to soothe sore muscles and inflammation. It is also used as an industrial lubricant and in cosmetics and other products.
But even this natural vegetable oil is not entirely benign- in the 1920's Mussolini's thugs used to round up dissidents and pour castor oil down there throat, inflicting a nasty case of diarrhea on them. Sherwood Anderson described the castor oil torture this way. "It's amusing to see Fascisti, wearing black shirts and looking very Ernest, bottles sticking out of the hip pockets, chasing wildly down the street after a Communist. Then the capture, the terrible assault, hurling the reckless Red to the sidewalk, injecting the bottle into his mouth to the muffled accompaniment of blasphemy of all the gods and devils in the universe."
© Amy Stewart
**As always I appreciate all your comments…Thank You!!**
"Casto Bean"
Copyright © 2011 Shari M Ortiz. All Rights Reserved
I typed this all up so you could read it clearly
One autumn morning in 1978, communist defector and BBC journalist George Markov walked across Waterloo Bridge and stood waiting at a bus stop. He felt a painful jab in the back of his thigh and turned around in time to see a man pickup an umbrella, mumble and apology, and run away. Over the next few days, he developed a fever, had trouble speaking, began throwing up blood and finally went to the hospital, where he died.
The pathologist found hemorrhages in almost every organ of his body. He also found a small puncture mark on his Markov's thigh and a tiny metal pellet in his leg. The pellet contained ricin, the poisonous extract from the castor bean plant. Although KGB agents were suspected of the crime, no one has ever been charged of the infamous "umbrella murder"
Castor oil has been popular home remedy for a variety of ailments for centuries. (The ricin is removed during the manufacturing process.)A spoonful of the oil is an effective laxative. Castor oil packs are used externally to soothe sore muscles and inflammation. It is also used as an industrial lubricant and in cosmetics and other products.
But even this natural vegetable oil is not entirely benign- in the 1920's Mussolini's thugs used to round up dissidents and pour castor oil down there throat, inflicting a nasty case of diarrhea on them. Sherwood Anderson described the castor oil torture this way. "It's amusing to see Fascisti, wearing black shirts and looking very Ernest, bottles sticking out of the hip pockets, chasing wildly down the street after a Communist. Then the capture, the terrible assault, hurling the reckless Red to the sidewalk, injecting the bottle into his mouth to the muffled accompaniment of blasphemy of all the gods and devils in the universe."
© Amy Stewart
**As always I appreciate all your comments…Thank You!!**