How poisonous are rhubarb leaves?

[Steven Jones]

I got the idea for using rhubarb leaves in a mystery from an episode of
Masterchef. The contestants were told to cut the leaves off the rhubarb
because they're poisonous.
I want to know if they're fatal enough for an NPC killer to use as a weapon.

[Bent C Dalager]

Post by Steven Jones
I got the idea for using rhubarb leaves in a mystery from an episode of
Masterchef. The contestants were told to cut the leaves off the rhubarb
because they're poisonous.
I want to know if they're fatal enough for an NPC killer to use as a weapon.

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/poison suggests that a 145 lbs person would
need to ingest 11 lbs of rhubarb leaves to reach the 50% lethality
threshold.

Cheers,
Bent D

[tussock]

Post by Bent C Dalager

Post by Steven Jones
I got the idea for using rhubarb leaves in a mystery from an episode of
Masterchef. The contestants were told to cut the leaves off the rhubarb
because they're poisonous.
I want to know if they're fatal enough for an NPC killer to use as a weapon.

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/poison suggests that a 145 lbs person would
need to ingest 11 lbs of rhubarb leaves to reach the 50% lethality
threshold.

That's probably wrong. It's based off the amount mice have to
ingest. There was a bull local to me ate two whole leaves and died soon
after (they'd fed him on garden trimmings, and threw the rhubarb leaves
over the fence without thinking).

But they're big, and they taste /really/ sour and bitter even in
small amounts, you'd never get anyone to eat enough. Try foxglove
instead, no taste, one little glove brewed into a tea should kill you
stone dead.

Hell, half the things in your garden can kill you if you eat the
wrong bit of them. As usual, the docs these days can find them all in
the body after the fact, so your NPC is going to go to prison.