[PW] Re: Medical condition in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's "The Palace".

[Charles Early]

"The Palace" was one of Yarbro's vampire novels about the Count Saint-Germain,
who as a vampire might be more likely than others to notice something odd 
about
someone's blood.

At 04:52 AM 12/19/2006, you wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 23:35:57 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >>I'm looking for the condition that the author is trying to describe in her
> >>version / theory of Lorenzo's death, rather than an evidenced explanation
> >>of the death of the real man.  Is there a condition that makes blood smell
> >>like apricots?
>
> >Maybe cyanide poisoning, which is traditionally associated with a smell of
> >"bitter almonds" (similar to apricot pits), and which can result from
> >ingestion of apricot pits (it is said).
>
>Cyanide poisoning imparts an apricot scent to the breath. Sixty
>percent of the population are unable to detect this. Like another
>poster, I have no idea if that would also apply to the blood, though
>it sounds unlikely.
>
>http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic118.htm
>
>Aside from the undetectability of the smell to most people, there's
>also a far more noticeable sign than breath-smell -- the cherry-red
>skin and tissues also associated with CO poisoning and resulting from
>the body's inability to extract oxygen from the blood. The process is
>different between CO and cyanide, but the result is the same. It seems
>odd that the description of Lorenzo or was it Cosimo should mention an
>almost invisible sign but not a very obvious one. So maybe it wasn't
>cyanide at all.
>
>
>--
>AH
>http://this-thing-of-ours.blogspot.com
>_______________________________________________
>Project Wombat
>list at project-wombat.org
>http://www.project-wombat.org/

Charles Early
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