Poison Dart?

[Aosto]

I've been doing some research and i'm trying to find what types of poison, if any, could be applied to the tip of a dart to knock someone out but not kill them. Anyone have any ideas, something that works quick possibly?

[Chime85]

try this video: Poison Arrows - Ray Mears Extreme Survival - BBC - YouTube

failing that, I have three words, Poison Dart Frog! Poison Dart Frogs, Poison Dart Frog Pictures, Poison Dart Frog Facts - National Geographic

Some tribes in the Amazon use the secretion of these frogs to tip their darts with poison. Using a large wooden pipe, they can take out a monkey with minimal effort: A Huaorani: Using Real Blowgun with Poisoned Darts - YouTube

Hope that helps

Edit: Don't worry, the man misses, I'm not about to advocate monkeycide!

[Aosto]

Thank you Chime85 for that information. I will have to do some research on the poison dart frog. I don't want the poison to kill, just knock them out. My MC isn't fond of killing.

[Anders Ämting]

Actually, if you want to play it realistically, "just knocking someone out" with a poison dart safely is actually very difficult, as this article points out. Here's the essential parts:

A sedative works by suppressing your brain functions and artificially inducing a coma. That may sound pretty straightforward, but the amount of sedative needed to render you unconscious is actually excruciatingly precise. Teeter toward one direction, and the sedative will only annoy you. Teeter toward the other, and the same sedative can be fatal. It all depends on how big you are

Further complicating the situation, the amount of sedative coursing through your veins has to be tightly controlled while you're unconscious, because "unconscious" can become "dead" more easily than you think. This is why anesthesiologists spend years in school and make lots of money.

So, basically, hitting someone with a dart covered in a sedative poison is more likely to either kill you or make you a bit woozy. The thing about poisons is that they literally poison you, and being poisoned is never a healthy thing.

The alternative to sedatives is paralytic poisons like curare, but you have basically the same problem - too little and your victim just gets a bit unsteady on his feet, too much and you paralyze his respiratory muscles and he suffocates to death.

That said, this is probably a typical example of a situation where you are allowed to take certain artistic liberties and handwave things a lot, since "the character gets tranqued" is such a commonly accepted plot device anyway.

[SeverinR]

Getting the right dose of "venom" to knock someone out is very tough. To much poison suppresses the breathing reflex to the point of death, slows the heart to much-causing arrythmias, death.
To little would do nothing towards incompacitation.
Multiple hits multiply the amount of venom in the system, thus overdose is possible.

Delivery; if the poison only gets under the out tissue, it is slowly absorbed over time, if it goes deep it can act quickly. Meaning alot or alittle medicine getting to the target in mass or in little. Ie overdose or underdosed.
Once the victims fight or flight response is activated the amount of medicine will increase drastically, and again over doing it is very easily, even more so if the person goes from fight or flight into depression or surrender.

Sleeping medicines can kill, nerve paralysis medicines can kill, narcotic pain medicines can kill.
Natures poisons are meant to kill their target for the most part, but if their target is larger then what they hunt, the effects will be lessened.

KNocking someone out in real life is very tough. Old time medincine, putting someone under was as likely to kill them as a mistake in surgery. Modern medicine requires vitals being checked continuously while under, to ensure they don't go to far under or wake up early.

Smacking someone upside the head is as likely to kill them with blunt force trauma as it is to knock them out. Even if they survive the initial smack, they can have a brain hemorage and die hours to days later.

[Darkfantasy]

Well, it depends on where your story is set. Look up poisionous plants for that region, also try poisoned arrows that might tell you. If all else fails make up a poison, not many people know how they used poisoned Darts.

[Cleio]

Can you actually use poison darts/arrows for hunting? Would the use of poison spoil the meat, or make it unsafe to eat?

[gavintonks]

The poison is called curare and the amount required for a human would probably be a tablespoon, then you would need to hit a vein, to have any affect, as the skin takes hours for it to [through a process of osmosis] get to a place which will take it to the brain to make it sleep, and of course too much the person dies, too little they are not asleep

an opiate overdose would also do the trick
Percussion - a very fast double slap to the face is usually used by 'highly trained] top secret people

then old fashioned chloroform is the best as it can be misted which would create instant sleep with a huge hangover in under a minute, and of course providing you do not smell it in the process