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And here is what I found about crushed/ground glass:
"In 1642, the writer and physician, Sir Thomas Browne, described in his book, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, how he tested this myth on dogs – and how he debunked it. (I guess he didn’t have to deal with a Grants Committee or an Ethics Committee). He wrote, “That Glass is poison, according unto common conceit, I know not how to grant … from experience, as having given unto Dogs above a dram thereof, subtilly (sic) powdered in Butter and Paste, without any visible disturbance”.
More recently, in 1916, a poisoner in New York City testified that he had tried to use ground glass to kill people, but that it had proved to be useless.
Since then, many people have written about this supposed toxicity of ground glass, but probably the nicest summary comes from Dr. D. P. Lyle, who wrote the enticingly-entitled Forensics for Dummies. In another of his books, Murder and Mayhem, A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers, he answers the ground glass conundrum. He writes that “very fine glass is unlikely to cause any lethal damage to the Gastro Intestinal tract … Even with coarser glass, the bleeding would probably not be massive or life-threatening, but slow and (would) lead to anaemia and fatigue.”
The gut is a very dynamic organ, writhing around as it does in that space between the bottom of your lungs and the top of your legs. It is also dynamic on its inside. It both grinds your food very finely in the stomach, as well as pushing it along the 8-metre-or-so length of the gut and out into your toilet bowl. Long skinny splinters of glass would definitely cause problems as it got shoved along your gut – but you would certainly notice it as you chewed your meal.
And yes, chunks of jagged glass the size of matchheads would cause bleeding as they rubbed against the soft interior of your gut - but while it was in your mouth, you would have to notice the unexpectedly rough texture of your meal. You would still notice the glass if it were ground as finely as sand (ever had a picnic on a windy day at the beach?). If the glass were ground so finely that you didn’t notice its presence in your mouth, then neither would your gut.
There might be an intermediate grain size of ground glass which you wouldn’t notice eating, but which would cause some minor bleeding, which you would notice in the toilet bowl - and then you could denounce your murderously transparent relative as a Pain in the Glass… Should you really wish to use glass as a murder weapon, do try a broken bottle."
So that's another urban myth busted.
"In 1642, the writer and physician, Sir Thomas Browne, described in his book, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, how he tested this myth on dogs – and how he debunked it. (I guess he didn’t have to deal with a Grants Committee or an Ethics Committee). He wrote, “That Glass is poison, according unto common conceit, I know not how to grant … from experience, as having given unto Dogs above a dram thereof, subtilly (sic) powdered in Butter and Paste, without any visible disturbance”.
More recently, in 1916, a poisoner in New York City testified that he had tried to use ground glass to kill people, but that it had proved to be useless.
Since then, many people have written about this supposed toxicity of ground glass, but probably the nicest summary comes from Dr. D. P. Lyle, who wrote the enticingly-entitled Forensics for Dummies. In another of his books, Murder and Mayhem, A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers, he answers the ground glass conundrum. He writes that “very fine glass is unlikely to cause any lethal damage to the Gastro Intestinal tract … Even with coarser glass, the bleeding would probably not be massive or life-threatening, but slow and (would) lead to anaemia and fatigue.”
The gut is a very dynamic organ, writhing around as it does in that space between the bottom of your lungs and the top of your legs. It is also dynamic on its inside. It both grinds your food very finely in the stomach, as well as pushing it along the 8-metre-or-so length of the gut and out into your toilet bowl. Long skinny splinters of glass would definitely cause problems as it got shoved along your gut – but you would certainly notice it as you chewed your meal.
And yes, chunks of jagged glass the size of matchheads would cause bleeding as they rubbed against the soft interior of your gut - but while it was in your mouth, you would have to notice the unexpectedly rough texture of your meal. You would still notice the glass if it were ground as finely as sand (ever had a picnic on a windy day at the beach?). If the glass were ground so finely that you didn’t notice its presence in your mouth, then neither would your gut.
There might be an intermediate grain size of ground glass which you wouldn’t notice eating, but which would cause some minor bleeding, which you would notice in the toilet bowl - and then you could denounce your murderously transparent relative as a Pain in the Glass… Should you really wish to use glass as a murder weapon, do try a broken bottle."
So that's another urban myth busted.
ick ear: