Natural Poisons and Venoms

The 5 volumes on “Natural Poisons and Venoms” offer a unique and complex insight into the fascinating world of poisonous and venomous creatures and their toxins. This volems contains a fundamental chapter on basic principles of toxicology, history, chemistry and pharmacology of natural poisons, the importance of toxins for their producer, potential danger for humans and animals, and general aspects of clinical toxicology including proposals for first aid and clinical measures. The following chapters focus on the poisonous representatives of two important biogenetically related groups of natural compounds, terpenes and steroids, including, for example, cardioactive steroid glycosides and saponins. The reader is informed about the botany and occurrence of plants producing these toxins, the chemistry, the biogenesis and the pharmacology of these toxins, possible causes of poisonings, precautions to avoid poisonings, symptoms of poisonings of humans and animals, proposals for treatment measures and the possible usefulness, in the past, in present and in the future, of these toxins, especially for the development of new medicines. The 2nd Edition entails a comlepete revision and update.