[Hugo]

Hi. I am writing a novel and I'm interested in a few of things regarding formaldehyde.

-What exactly would happen if you injected formaldehyde into a human's blood stream?
-What is the lethal dosage to kill an adult human?
-What would happen if you injected formaldehyde directly into the heart?
-Is using formaldehyde an efficient way of killing someone?
-Can you provide some cool / off-beat facts regarding formaldehyde?

If someone could answer these questions, that'd be amazing. Thanks in advance.

[Arkcon]

Yesh.  OK, I'll try to help, but still, yeesh

Hi. I am writing a novel and I'm interested in a few of things regarding formaldehyde.

Let me start off with my usual point.  What you want is verisimilitude -- a subtle bit of the appearance of knowledge, even with some falseness in it.  That is more believable than perfect facts, which people will always try to pick apart.

Formaldehyde is toxic, and corrosive.  We usually don't have to qualify it better than that.  But anyway ...

-What exactly would happen if you injected formaldehyde into a human's blood stream?

Now see, you jump right in with two bad ideas at once.  You know is toxic by ingestion, and of course if it burns skin if it touches, and irritates mucus membranes if inhaled, then you don't want to inject it.  But you never want to inject anything that isn't an isotonic solution. 

-What is the lethal dosage to kill an adult human?

LD₅₀ is 100 mg/kg (oral, rat).  That is to say that 50% of rat subjects die at that dosage.  Probably just as lethal to humans, so you just multiply as necessary.

-What would happen if you injected formaldehyde directly into the heart?

Bad things.  just like I said above, but more so.  For obvious reasons.

-Is using formaldehyde an efficient way of killing someone?

Ho-Kay.  See, that's a bad question to ask.  We're not in the business of planning murders for people.  Even for literary sources.  So you have to just work with the theoretical on your own.

-Can you provide some cool / off-beat facts regarding formaldehyde?

Try wikipedia.  It often has random off-beat facts included.  If they're not perfectly sourced, then that's verisimilitude -- a subtle falsehood that sounds good and is more believable than the truth.

[Hugo]

Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions (especially since, upon reflection, they're a little bit... off-beat...)

The corrosive part is interesting. I just wanted to know some basic facts before deciding whether to delve deeper into the subject.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

[Yggdrasil]

Injecting formaldehyde into the heart of rodents is a common way of preparing brain tissue for scientific research.  If you aren't too squeamish, here's a link to a video and article that discusses and demonstrates the procedure:

http://www.jove.com/video/3564/whole-animal-perfusion-fixation-for-rodents

Note that watching the video does not make one an expert in the procedure, and as with all scientific procedures involving live animals, should only be done under the oversight of a proper institutional review board.

[Hugo]

Injecting formaldehyde into the heart of rodents is a common way of preparing brain tissue for scientific research.  If you aren't too squeamish, here's a link to a video and article that discusses and demonstrates the procedure:

http://www.jove.com/video/3564/whole-animal-perfusion-fixation-for-rodents

Note that watching the video does not make one an expert in the procedure, and as with all scientific procedures involving live animals, should only be done under the oversight of a proper institutional review board.

Oooh man... that was very interesting, but aaaaaa

And don't worry. There is no way I'll be trying that myself. It was bad enough watching it.

"Trim off the remaining neck muscle"