4 ms·

That's a lot of anything to dose with. It reminds me a bit of the datasheet for sodium chloride - common table salt - that describes the skin contact LD50 (the

That's a lot of anything to dose with. It reminds me a bit of the datasheet for sodium chloride - common table salt - that describes the skin contact LD50 (the amount that is a lethal dose for 50% of a population of test rabbits) as ">25kg". So what do we read from that? If you drop a sack of salt weighing as much as an eight-year-old child on a series of rabbits, roughly half of them will die? I can't say I'm *very* surprised...

eshack94 4y ago
The last part of your comment feels like it should be the punchline for an xkcd comic.
- JPLeRouzic 4y ago
  Ha, ha, sorry if it looks odd, English is not my native tongue.
DuckFeathers 4y ago
Not very different from study designs used by pharmaceuticals to show that their new patent-pending drug outperforms the generic one. They deliberately design it so that the competing drug isn't the right dose or somehow not administered correctly... and if someone tries to fight them, their license is taken away.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> So what do we read from that? If you drop a sack of salt weighing as much as an eight-year-old child on a series of rabbits, roughly half of them will die? No, you should read exactly what it says. If you put a series of rabbits in skin contact with 25kg of salt each, less than half of them will die. That's how we know the LD50 is greater than 25 kilograms. I assume 25 kilograms was the limit of testing, and that's why the result is reported the way it is. I'm also willing to go out on a limb and assume the number of test rabbits that died from being put in skin contact with 25kg of salt was zero, which is less than half of the test pool as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- misja111 4y ago
  > ... as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits. That seems a pretty safe assumption.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  > I'm also willing to go out on a limb and assume the number of test rabbits that died from being put in skin contact with 25kg of salt was zero, Depending on what height it was applied from > less than half of the test pool as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits. Positive integer number of rabbits, with any luck, although I suspect in this instance imaginary rabbits may have been used. Definitely not complex ones though.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  I'd be surprised if a rabbit has enough skin surface area to be in contact with more than about 1Kg of salt. How could the skin contact test continue past the point where extra salt wasn't in skin contact?
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Put the rabbit and the salt in a sealed container and pump the air out to expand the rabbit?
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    If you assume that solid salt can't flow, then it can't. But for e.g. a contact poison absorbed through the skin, sticking your finger into a large pool of the stuff might get you a bigger dose than sticking your finger into a tiny puddle, even with little to no difference in surface area of skin making contact. Going back to salt, it is known and used for its ability to draw water out of other materials. If you stay in contact with a large quantity of salt, it will kill you through dehydration, because even though it can't flow, the water that you contain can. Your skin should have a good amount of resistance to this; the inside of your nostrils, or an open wound, not so much. I'm speculating here; if you really want a definitive answer, you'll need to find someone who creates data for MSDS sheets.
phkahler 4y ago
It's different if dropping the salt crushes the animals, gets eaten and causes a heart attack, burns off their fur, causes bleeding, or causes Parkinson disease. That last one is so odd you'd take note of any high dose of anything causing it. Like TFA suggests, this is reason for further investigation.

eshack94 4y ago

The last part of your comment feels like it should be the punchline for an xkcd comic.

JPLeRouzic 4y ago
Ha, ha, sorry if it looks odd, English is not my native tongue.

DuckFeathers 4y ago

Not very different from study designs used by pharmaceuticals to show that their new patent-pending drug outperforms the generic one. They deliberately design it so that the competing drug isn't the right dose or somehow not administered correctly... and if someone tries to fight them, their license is taken away.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> So what do we read from that? If you drop a sack of salt weighing as much as an eight-year-old child on a series of rabbits, roughly half of them will die? No, you should read exactly what it says. If you put a series of rabbits in skin contact with 25kg of salt each, less than half of them will die. That's how we know the LD50 is greater than 25 kilograms. I assume 25 kilograms was the limit of testing, and that's why the result is reported the way it is. I'm also willing to go out on a limb and assume the number of test rabbits that died from being put in skin contact with 25kg of salt was zero, which is less than half of the test pool as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
misja111 4y ago
> ... as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits. That seems a pretty safe assumption.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
> I'm also willing to go out on a limb and assume the number of test rabbits that died from being put in skin contact with 25kg of salt was zero, Depending on what height it was applied from > less than half of the test pool as long as it contained a positive number of rabbits. Positive integer number of rabbits, with any luck, although I suspect in this instance imaginary rabbits may have been used. Definitely not complex ones though.
jodrellblank 4y ago
I'd be surprised if a rabbit has enough skin surface area to be in contact with more than about 1Kg of salt. How could the skin contact test continue past the point where extra salt wasn't in skin contact?
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Put the rabbit and the salt in a sealed container and pump the air out to expand the rabbit?
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  If you assume that solid salt can't flow, then it can't. But for e.g. a contact poison absorbed through the skin, sticking your finger into a large pool of the stuff might get you a bigger dose than sticking your finger into a tiny puddle, even with little to no difference in surface area of skin making contact. Going back to salt, it is known and used for its ability to draw water out of other materials. If you stay in contact with a large quantity of salt, it will kill you through dehydration, because even though it can't flow, the water that you contain can. Your skin should have a good amount of resistance to this; the inside of your nostrils, or an open wound, not so much. I'm speculating here; if you really want a definitive answer, you'll need to find someone who creates data for MSDS sheets.

phkahler 4y ago

It's different if dropping the salt crushes the animals, gets eaten and causes a heart attack, burns off their fur, causes bleeding, or causes Parkinson disease. That last one is so odd you'd take note of any high dose of anything causing it. Like TFA suggests, this is reason for further investigation.