Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal Issues:How does the poison enter into the body?

The way the poison gets into the body is called the route of exposure or the route of absorption. The amount of poison that gets into the blood during a given time depends on the route.

• Through the mouth by swallowing: This is the most common route of poisoning. Small children often swallow poison accidentally, and adults who want to poison themselves may swallow poison. If people eat, drink or smoke after they have been handling poisons, without first washing their hands, they may accidentally swallow some of the poison. This is a common cause of pesticide poisoning.
• After ingestion, some poisons can pass through the gut walls and into the blood vessels. This can be stopped by giving activated charcoal (because this binds some poisons so that they cannot pass through the gut walls) or laxatives (to make the poison move through the gut and out of the body) more quickly.
• Poisons that do not pass through the gut walls do not get into the blood and so cannot affect other parts of the body. For e.g., mercury metal cannot pass through the gut walls; if mercury from a thermometer is swallowed, it passes out of the body in the feces and does not cause poisoning.