A video roundup of the world's most lethal substances

You've probably heard the expression, "the dose makes the poison." This is a shorter version of Paracelsus's basic rule of toxicology: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."

This video starts with things requiring a large dose to kill a person: water (1.5 gallons), sugar (1.8 kg), MSG (1kg), vitamin C (738 grams), alcohol (25 shots of vodka), THC (79 grams), ibuprofen (40 grams), and coffee (60 Americanos). It then moves onto stronger stuff: cocaine (5.7 grams), methamphetamine (3.5 grams), and mercury (2.5 grams). Then come the truly powerful substances: Heroin and LSD (1 gram), nicotine (403 mg), deathstalker scorpion venom (267 mg), hydrogen cyanide (229 mg), pufferfish venom (21 milligrams), plutonium (20 mg), amatoxin (found in death cap mushrooms, 19 mg), sarin (11 mg), Brazilian wandering spider venom (8 mg), inland Taipan snake venom (2 mg), ricin (1 mg), black widow spider venom (267 micrograms), poison dart frog venom (124 micrograms, the weight of two human eyelashes), polonium-210 (620 nanograms, the weight of 2 or 3 grains of pollen), and the most lethal known substance: botox (62 nanograms).

Image: Shutterstock/reptiles4all