A 56 year-old woman died after ingesting poisonous herbal tea that she unwittingly bought from a shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown, public health officials announced Monday.
Yu-Ping Xiem, a San Francisco resident, became extremely ill—experiencing physical weakness and abnormal heart rhythms requiring resuscitation—within an hour of sipping the tea she had bought at the herbalist, officials said.
According to Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, he was hospitalized for almost two weeks before passing away at California Pacific Medical Center’s Pacific campus on Saturday,
A man in his 30s was also poisoned by a tea purchased from the same shop, Kagan said. He has since recovered and was released from hospital on March 12.
The pair had purchased different blends of medicinal tea containing different leaves at Sun Wing Wo Trading Company in Chinatown.
Lab tests performed on the patients and the blends reveals that the toxic substance in the tea was aconite, a well-known ancient poison.
Aconite, also known as the “queen of all poisons,” wolf’s bane, helmet flower, monkshood or evil’s helmet is a wild plant that has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat joint pain, gout and bruises.
Aconite root contains a strong, fast-acting poison but may be used for treatment after being appropriately processed.
If ingested raw, however, the plant can cause severe side effects such as nausea, vomiting, weakness or inability to move, sweating, breathing problems and heart palpitations—all of which can lead to death.
Aconite has a reputation as the poison of choice of Greeks and Romans (that, and hemlock) as there is no antidote for the deadly root. Emperor Claudius was said to have been poisoned with aconite by his wife who hid the plant in a plate of mushrooms.
Following the tea poisoning incident, environmental health inspectors raided the San Francisco herbal shop to remove all products containing aconite from the shelves.
The shop’s owner is collaborating with the health department to find the source of the toxin.