History Main / PerfectPoison

* ''Literature/BooksOfRaksura'': There's an herbal poison that kills [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Fell]] within minutes, inflicts InstantSedation on Raksura with no long-term effect, and is harmless to everyone else. It has no colour and a only faint, easily-disguised grassy taste, and is so effective that Fell quickly die just by eating the flesh of something that drank from [[WaterSourceTampering a tainted stream]].

* Averted in the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'' and ''Literature/{{Malloreon}}'', where there is ''no'' such thing as a symptomless poison, at least to someone who's familiar with them (like Nyissans, who live around poisons all their lives). In fact, most poisons kill in somewhat over-the-top manners (Sadi, a Nyissan, eventually uses one to remove an obstructing Grolim disguised as an advisor—it swells the throat to simulate choking). The closest there is to a "perfect" poison, thalot (a guaranteed kill even against magic because it poisons ''everything'' in the victim's body), has obvious symptoms and takes several days to finish off the victim. [[spoiler:And then we find out that Garion accidentally created an antidote for thalot several books earlier; the attempt to poison Zakath ''fails'' because Polgara had some on hand.]]

* Averted in ''[[Literature/CircleOfMagic Street Magic]]''; the villain commits suicide by quick-acting poison to evade the authorities, and Briar finds the body and identifies the poison by scent, indicating that it was taken straight. In addition, he can tell from [[spoiler: Lady Zenadia's]] body language that it was a painful death.

* In the ''ComicBook/ChickTract'' "Party Girl", a man who drinks a poisoned drink dies in less than four minutes.
* ComicBook/TheJoker's trademark Joker Venom is sometimes depicted this way; special mention goes to its very first appearance,[[note]]''Batman'' #1, later modernized in Ed Brubaker's ''The Man Who Laughs''[[/note]] where the victim stands perfectly healthy (if extremely nervous) for the first twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds after exposure... and ''instantly'' keels over with the trademark death-grin one second later.
* In one of ComicBook/{{X 23}}'s solo comics telling how she briefly lived with her aunt and cousin, an altercation with her high school biology teacher lead to her matter-of-factly telling him the best way to poison a person undetected (and since she used to be an assassin, she presumably is speaking from experience). HilarityEnsues when she and her cousin are sent to the principal over this.
* ''Franchise/TeenTitans'' rogue [[Characters/TeenTitansCheshire Cheshire]] is a MasterPoisoner that can make her poisons have all sorts of effects, such as [[TheParalyzer paralyzing effects]] or [[PoisonIsCorrosive being corrosive]]. She can make them appliable in and [[PoisonedWeapons all sorts of weaponry]], no matter the size, making even a [[DeadlyScratch scratch potentially fatal]]. She can also make her toxins to be odorless and nigh undetectable even by a master assassin like [[Characters/BatmanLadyShiva Lady Shiva]] or someone with enhanced senses with Catman.

* Iocaine powder from ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'' is odorless, tasteless, and causes nearly instant death from a dose small enough to avoid detection by the victim in a single glass of wine.

* Iocaine powder from ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' is odorless, tasteless, and causes nearly instant death from a dose small enough to avoid detection by the victim in a single glass of wine.

* ''Film/TheSurvivalist'' has three people in stuck in an isolated hideout where supplies and forgaging can only feed two. Cue poison mushrooms hidden in the stew, and a PoisonedChaliceSwitcheroo.

Outside of highly controlled chemical munitions, there are very few substances available to the average murderer that can kill a human being as quickly and easily as the poisons of fiction. Famous poisons like arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, etc. require small, repeated doses to build up enough concentrations to kill without arousing the suspicion of the victim. In significant quantities, such poisons can taste extremely bitter, hence why many historical rulers had food tasters. The mechanisms by which these poisons kill can also cause [[BodyHorror dramatic physical reactions]] in the victim. While it is true that they were once very hard to detect, these old standby poisons are [[TechnologyMarchesOn easily and routinely detected by modern forensic pathology]].

* The assassination of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko Alexander Litvinenko]], a prominent critic of then-president of Russia UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin, was an ''attempt'' to use Perfect Poison which backfired spectacularly. Litvinenko was killed when someone sprinkled polonium-210 into his teacup. Polonium-210 has many advantages: it can be carried safely in a vial of water without detection, and while death is certain the initial symptoms don't immediately suggest poison, giving time for the poisoner to make a clean getaway. Furthermore, unlike other radioactive substances, polonium-210 only emits alpha particles that cannot penetrate even a sheet of paper, thus making it invisible to normal radiation detectors (and requiring it to be physically ingested to work as a poison). However, they made one big mistake: they thought it was undetectable. While the technology to detect polonium-210 didn't exist in Russia, it ''did'' in the West. Oops. Furthermore, whoever did the actual poisoning seemingly didn't realize how much polonium-210 contaminates. Simply uncapping the vial is enough to leave detectable amounts. This made Litvinenko's murder one of the most unsubtle in history, with investigators simply following the trail of radioactivity back to the murderer's hotel room.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Karen Wetterhahn]] died after exposure to a tiny drop of dimethyl mercury on her gloved hand on August 14th, 1996. However, the death was long and drawn out, and she only began showing symptoms in December of 1996. Three weeks after showing symptoms she slipped into a vegetative state alternating with periods of extreme agitation which was horrifying to watch with all the thrashing and stuff; however, doctors said she likely wasn't in pain - her brain was well beyond the point of transmitting the likes of pain signals. She did not actually die until June 8, 1997, when she was removed from life support. In this case, the poison wasn't untraceable. Weaponizing it would be tough: While a cheap supermarket squirt gun full of the stuff would ensure the deaths of targets better than a rocket launcher, we're talking something ''so'' toxic that if you ''know what it smells like,'' that means you've most likely [[YouAreAlreadyDead taken in a lethal dose]].

* The real-life poisons abrin and ricin are both very deadly, and can easily be manufactured from common ornamental plants, making the origin of the poison difficult to trace. In the assassination of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov Georgi Markov]], identifying the organisation that was likely responsible (the Bulgarian Secret Police) was not done by tracing the ricin, but by investigating the capsule used to deliver the poison - a matching pellet had been recovered in the case of Vladimir Kostov, another Bulgarian defector who was attacked ten days before Markov's murder, although in his case the pellet appeared to have been damaged before it entered his body and did not retain enough ricin inside it to cause his death. Neither poison kills as quickly as the trope demands, but they're about as close as real life gets.

** Other animals with quick-killing poisons and venoms include the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus blue-ringed octopodes]] of the ''Hapalochlaena'' genus, as well as many varieties of cone snails and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_dart_frog poison dart frogs]], all of which can kill within minutes if you touch them (except poison dart frogs, which can only kill you if the poison is ingested or enters the bloodstream through a cut or a [[PoisonedWeapons poison dart]]). In fact, ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conus_geographus Conus geographicus]]'' is nicknamed the "cigarette snail" because its victims are said to only have enough time to smoke a cigarette before they die, though in reality it usually takes several hours to kill someone. However, the toxins from poison dart frogs are far from perfect -- they work by paralysing muscles, including those used for breathing. While this means they are quickly fatal if untreated, a victim can be kept alive by artificial or mouth-to-mouth respiration and will recover entirely in a few hours as the poison wears off. The same also applies to blue-ringed octopuses, but the main difficulty with them is that they're so small and don't have an immediately painful bite, so it's hard to tell someone has even been envenomated before it's too late to keep them alive.

** Amanita mushrooms (death caps or destroying angels) could conceivably be eaten voluntarily by someone who doesn't know their mushroom lore, and do indeed cause yearly poisonings worldwide. What makes these mushrooms nasty is that the toxins in them are stable even in extreme temperatures; ''cooking them '''WON'T''' save you''. The Deadly Webcap (Cortinarius rubellus) also deserves mention - a sugar cube-sized piece of mushroom flesh is tasteless, odorless and causes fatal kidney damage after one week. The toxin can easily be extracted from the mushroom by boiling, and is thermally stable.

This is generally assumed to be the kind of poison used in a case of FingerLickingPoison. Frequently has an ImprobableAntidote. May or may not [[TechnicolorToxin be purple or green]]. Naturally, part of its perfectness is usually that it works on [[UniversalPoison everything.]] If ingested, expect to see [[PoisonIsCorrosive the spilled drink to dissolve the table]]. Compare InstantDeathBullet and InstantDeathStab for other murder methods that work much faster in fiction than in real life.

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'':
** Subverted in ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'', where it was established that the Wicked Queen killed Snow White's mother by slowly poisoning her as her handmaid, then married Snow White's father and did the same to him. The same was done to Prince Wendall's parents by the new [[WickedStepmother stepmother]].

** In the first case of ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney: Adventures'', the victim was revealed to have been killed with curare, a poison which the Meiji era Japan had no scientific means to detect. Since curare paralyzes the muscles and halts breathing, the victim died in a restaurant filled with people, and nobody even noticed until the killer proceeded to make it look like he died from a gunshot wound.

** In ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', Blofeld pulls his first BlofeldPloy, putting Kronsteen at ease by directing his anger at Rosa Klebb for their operation's failure - then having a mook kick Kronsteen with a poisoned blade. He drops dead in a matter of seconds; Blofeld times it, observing that they need to develop a faster-working poison.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', which has fairly medieval technology, the "tears of Lys" are a poison that effectively duplicates the effects of a harsh fever, leading to an apparently natural death. However, it's stated that the death takes some weeks, and it may well require repeated dosages. More messily, another poison causes symptoms which resemble anaphylactic shock or choking/suffocation--but the poison is stated to have magic in it, and it may have been sourced from an order of shape-changing assassins, so it may be justified. Other than that, all poisons are detected by food tasters, kill over time, or are not used to kill at all; for example, one character doses another with a poison that leaves her indisposed for a day or two so that he can work uninterrupted. [[spoiler:And in the case of the Tears of Lys, it also helped that the Maester in charge of healing the victim knew he was being poisoned and was ordered not to cure him. [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch He subsequently covered up the death as "death by natural causes"]].]]

* In ''Film/{{Traffic}}'', the police informant played by Miguel Ferrer dies a few minutes after eating one bite of a poisoned breakfast. The only warning was his comment that the food "tastes like shit."

* Subverted in Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/TheNakedSun''. Someone tries to poison Hannis Gruer, but because murder is so rare in Solaria, he gets the dosage wrong and Gruer vomits it up before it can kill him. It also creates an instant and very obvious symptom -- Gruer's throat immediately burns after he takes the poison.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': Walt cooks up a little ricin to deal with Tuco. It's odorless, tasteless, requires an extremely small dose, kills within a few days after at first appearing like the flu, and is so rare it isn't tested for. Later in the series, Jesse keeps around a "lucky cigarette" filled with the stuff, just in case. [[spoiler:Ricin is used for actual poisoning only once, in the last episode of the series: Walt puts it into Lydia's tea, killing her.]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Karen Wetterhahn]] died after exposure to a tiny drop of dimethyl mercury on her gloved hand on August 14th, 1996. However, the death was long and drawn out, and she only began showing symptoms in December of 1996. Three weeks after showing symptoms she slipped into a vegetative state alternating with periods of extreme agitation which was horrifying to watch with all the thrashing and stuff; however, doctors said she likely wasn't in pain - her brain was well beyond the point of transmitting the likes of pain signals. She did not actually die until June 8, 1997, when she was removed from life support. In this case, the poison wasn't untraceable. Weaponizing it would be tough: While a cheap supermarket squirt gun full of the stuff would ensure the deaths of targets better than a rocket launcher, we're talking something ''so'' toxic that if you ''know what it smells like,'' that means you've most likely taken in enough of it that YouAreAlreadyDead.

** In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' there is a powerful poison plant called Jarrin Root that is said to kill instantly. It causes 200 points of poison damage, which is more than enough to kill any low-level enemies. But when combined with other poisonous reagents and a high Alchemy skill the damage can range in the thousands.

* In the FanFic/{{Dangerverse}}, [[spoiler:Narcissia Malfoy drinks a poison that gives her twenty fours to live, long enough to do quite a lot of confessing and taking her out of Draco's life, so he doesn't feel conflicted.]]

* In the Dangerverse, [[spoiler:Narcissia Malfoy drinks a poison that gives her twenty fours to live, long enough to do quite a lot of confessing and taking her out of Draco's life, so he doesn't feel conflicted.]]

* Averted in ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima''. A perfect poison seems to be what Jin has in mind when discovering concentrated wolfsbane poison. It turns out that instead a dart loaded with enough of the stuff to kill quickly makes the victim howl in pain and vomit blood. [[WeNeedADistraction Still useful]], if not what he was aiming for.

* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'': Both the episode "The Chaser" and the story it's based on have expensive "glove cleaner", "totally undetectable to all forms of autopsy". The man who sells it also sells love potions... for five dollars. He's expecting all of his customers to come back for the "glove cleaner"...