A Case of Castor Bean Poisoning

Castor beans, sometimes used in traditional therapies, contain ricin one of the most toxic substances known. It maycause an acute and potentially fatal gastroenteritis in addition to neurological and ophthalmological lesions. Poisoning may also leadto delayed visceral damages; however, the latter is quite rare. The toxicity is dose related and depends on the amount of castor beansingested. There is no specific treatment and symptomatic management to reduce the load of the toxin needs to be initiated quickly andearly when a case of poisoning is suspected so that serious complications will be avoided. Increasing the awareness of the populationto the dangers of ricin would be a way to avoid the utilisation of castor seeds in traditional therapies. Here we are reporting a case ofmild poisoning after ingestion of a single castor bean. The patient, who presented at Nizwa Hospital, Oman, fortunately recoveredcompletely as the ingested dose was quite small.