Hacker News Reader

Comment by ardme | Hacker News Reader

I thought the mention of water hemlock near the end was interesting. Actually, common poison hemlock (which is related) grows all over the U.S. midwest like a weed and it is very deadly. You will see it growing in fields and at the side of many highways if you drive through Ohio. It is commonly mistaken for wild carrots (aka queen anne's lace). It famously was used to poison Socrates, and it kills a lot of livestock accidentally in modern times.

https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/logan-ut/poisonou...

View on HN

I didn't realize that was hemlock. We have it growing in our back yard in a bad patch of weeds we need to clear out.

It looks very similar to lots of other plants, some of which are edible like fennel.

I've actually cleared it out before and didn't even realize what it was. I volunteer to clean up invasive species, and we end up pulling a lot out when we clean up buckthorn along with garlic mustard. I probably knew it was hemlock at one point it time, but it didn't really stick.

This plant is all over California. I am actually surprised I have never heard of any fatalities.

In my experience, modern Americans rarely go around eating weeds from the wilderness / side of highway. Lack of fatalities is not surprising.

join us,

https://fallingfruit.org/

At the ER?

there are 4 entries for my city.

these four entries are dumpsters.

what a fallen fruit, indeed.

There are a lot of entries for my city ... one is a dumpster and upon closer investigation it's behind a grocery store.

I just checked my town, Bellevue NE, a Suburb of Omaha, we have a garden and two Apple orchards. The middle of nowhere ain't so bad.

I recently picked a bunch of wild fennel seeds while out on a hike, then got home and realized that the plant is pretty hard to tell from poison hemlock when dried out, and that perhaps I might have managed to mix in a few hemlock seeds... :-/

The article by the radiologist who ate the fruit of the manchineel came up here some weeks ago.

Can't believe anyone would consider eating random fruit let alone a radiologist. You must be pretty smart to become a radiologist right?

The medical profession appears to reward skill in memorization over novel intelligence. The vast majority of doctors will never work with anything that hasn't been done thousands if not millions of times already. Often when they leave their field the dunning kruger effect takes hold and you have stuff like this happening. The uneducated farm boy won't eat the fruit because he doesn't know anything about it, the radiologist does because he thinks he knows.

> Often when they leave their field the dunning kruger effect takes hold and you have stuff like this happening.

For an excellent example of this, see ignorant comments about the medical field on Hacker News.

If only ad hominem's refuted claims. What a tender world that would be.

Don't really need to refute a claim with no evidence to support it written by someone likely not involved in the field.

People who are correct can come up with something better than an argumentum ad verecundiam.

Why should they? You throw out some nonsense claim and then it's on random internet folk to dive in and do the research to prove you wrong? Get over yourself.

This quote may be a clue to how it happened:

> Sadly, the pain was exacerbated by most alcoholic beverages

I guess alcohol effects people differently. I'm certainly a bit slow when I have too many beers. But I'd never consider just eating random things.

But the account of their ordeal seems to be fairly detailed. So they can't have been that drunk!?

I know many a toddler that will eat anything and everything that's within reach. Eating grass, weeds, bugs, or even dirt is not out of the question.

Science is increasingly siding with these toddlers (improves biota, reduces asthma); just not re this particular plant, of course.

> I am actually surprised I have never heard of any fatalities.

There are loads of toxic flowers, plants, and trees.

As for your question. I guess because people generally don't live like Into The Wild [1].

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758758/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com