Quotes from John Emsley

you cannot kill yourself by taking a large dose of sodium chloride (it will only make you vomit) or by injecting a solution of it. On the other hand, if you injected a solution of potassium chloride it will kill you within minutes by upsetting the rhythm of your heart.

This minimum, the so-called critical mass, turned out to be a surprisingly small 4 kg, about the size of an apple.

Coca-Cola is just a concoction of chemicals; garlic wards off heart disease and cancer; an aspirin a day keeps the doctor away. None of these statements is true, but they contain a germ of truth.

This does not mean that eating potassium chloride in place of sodium chloride, in a low-salt formulation, is risky—it isn't. We need much more potassium chloride in our diet than sodium chloride, but normally we get all we need in the food we eat.

Condemned men who agree to donate their organs for transplants may be executed by being given what is described as a non-toxic lethal injection of potassium chloride. This chemical kills, but, unlike poison gas or the electric chair, it leaves all the organs undamaged. The