Table 2. Excerpts of 20 illustrative poisoning cases recorded at the Marseille Poison Control Center (transcript from the MPCC audio recordings and French-to-English translation by the authors).
| Medicalcase # | Poisoning description | Naturally occurring talk – Physician-patient phone calls |
| A | Visior sweet almondextract dish liquidpoured like syrup1. | - Caller: […] My wife made a mistake, instead of taking the bottle of mint syrup 1, she took the bottle we use to wash the dishes, they have the same color. [….] A sweet almond flavor […] I hand my wife the phone.- Patient: I poured very little of it. I thought I was pouring mint, it’s the same color and both bottles are next to each other under the sink. I took that and I poured a little bit. I just poured it then I filled my glass with water. |
| B | Bleach tablet mistakenfor a candy. | - Caller: Hello I’m calling because there is someone besides me who just put a bleach tablet in his mouth. […]- Physician: It’s a mistake? An error?- Caller: He thought it was a candy. |
| C | Visior dish liquidpoured like syrup1. | - Caller: […] She thought it was mint syrup 1, she was still a bit asleep. In addition, the product is blue. I asked her to bring the product. Her husband went to pick it up. […]- Physician: Do you know if it has been diluted?- Caller: Yes, it was diluted. She put some in the glass similarly to the way you would put syrup 1 before mixing it with water […]. |
| D | Champion henna andhazelnuts forbrunettesserved as honey. | - Caller: Good afternoon, Madam, […] my girlfriend swallowed a mouthful of shampoo looking like honey. […]- Physician: She thought it was honey, right?- Caller: Yes. The pot is exactly the same. |
| E | Mouthful of Souplinelavender softener. | - Patient: Madam, here what happening to me. I thought I took a bit of water and the bottle happened not to be in its usual spot, and I swallowed a mouthful of Soupline, you know what one for rinsing. So I tried to make myself throw up. I called because I’m wondering what I have to do. […] |
| F | Cottage Happy Shower Tequila Sunriseshower gel mistakenfor an orange juice. | - Caller: Hello Sir, I call you because my wife just swallowed a mouthful, it’s a shower gel. Let me explain why she has ingested some. Because it is a bottle that is… I just came back from grocery shopping and there is this bottle that looks like a bottle of fruit juice, green with orange, but ultimately it is … [He mumbles reading a description on the product.] What is that? Yeah, it’s a shower gel. So inadvertently, she believed that it was orange juice. She took it and she has swallowed a mouthful. […]- Physician: OK. It’s some orange flavor. It was a tube, well, how could I explain…- Caller: Well, it is a new product that’s why… It looks like a bottle, the capacity is 250 ml, flashy green. It may just be a bottle of orange juice. In addition, the cap is like the bottle caps … the ones you pull.- Physician: Yeah. A bit like one of those bike things.- Caller: Absolutely. It is true that this leads to confusion. One should be well advised to paying attention to this because … even for children and everything.- Physician: Exactly. That’s why I ask for clarification …- Caller: Yes, I have seen others like this in the alley of the supermarket, but ultimately it’s true that if I had seen it myself on a table, I see orange slices, I would have grabbed it… |
| G | Tropic force multi-purpose householdcleaner fruityatmosphere mistakenfor a drink. | - Caller: Hello, this is Dr. X from the Cayenne E.R. I’m calling about a woman, 72 years old, who, earlier, about a half-hour ago, drank some household cleaner […]. It smells very fruity and it was stored in the freezer. |
| H | Le Comptoir de Famille tomato leafliquid soap mistook forcough syrup1. | - Caller: […] My husband had to take some cough syrup 1, the Surbronc one, and he made a mistake – not paying attention – there was, close to the sink, some soap but a liquid one with a tomato leaf flavor. So I’d like to know…- Physician: … he took a soup spoon isn’t it?- Caller: No. A coffee spoon. |
| I | Mir vaisselle dish liquidpoured like muscatel. | - Physician: So you drank a bit of Mir dish liquid? […] That is? You thought it was syrup 1 or it was some leftover in a glass?- Patient: Excuse me?- Physician: How was it? You took it for syrup 1 by yourself or was there some leftover in a glass…- Patient: …for muscatel wine!- Physician: For muscatel wine! Well, well!- Patient: Same color. |
| J | Cajoline Vaporesseironing liquid mistakenfor water. | - Caller: Good evening. Poison center?- Physician: Yes.- Caller: I call you from Corsica. There is a woman who was ironing at my home. She wanted to drink a and she made a mistake between two bottles.- Physician: What did she drink?- Caller: She drank some Cajoline the one that you pour in your iron. She took a sip. […] |
| K | Milodor strawberry multi-purpose cleaner pouredlike syrup1. | - Caller: It’s some kind of thing stuff, yes. In fact it’s something that reads in essence: "Strawberry" it’s all red and he mistook it for syrup 1. |
| L | O’Cedar parquet floor cleaner mistaken for a juice fruit. | - Patient: It’s a very pretty pink liquid that looked like my bottle of Guava. […] I drank from the bottle as I always do. Hence I must have swallowed a good mouthful. |
| M | Adidas Sport Fieldmenthol shower gelpoured in a glass. | - Caller: Good morning. I am a nurse in a nursing home in Montpellier. Look it’s perhaps nothing but one of my residents has a priori drunk a shower stuff called Adidas Sport Field menthol. […] |
| N | Eau Précieuse 2 cleansingmistaken for water. | - Caller: Hello, I call you about my wife. […] She takes tablet of caffeine-Propofan because she has a headache. She took the wrong bottle, instead of taking a bottle of water, she had some sips of Eau Précieuse 2 the one for cleaning the face. I would like to know if it’s dangerous, if there is something to do. |
| O | Skip Actigel diswashertablet mistaken for acookie. | - Patient: Good evening. I just called because I thought it was a cookie and …- Physician: … you have taken a bite of a dishwasher tablet haven’t you? 3- Patient: Yes. […] I was watching a game on TV and I wanted to eat something, my wife is so clever, she put it with cookies we buy for our grandchildren. |
| P | Cosmence slimmingcream ingested. | - Caller: Good morning, this is Dr X. from Porto-Vecchio. I call you because of a young lady that made a mistake. There was a product for losing weight to apply on the skin and actually she diluted it in water and she drunk it all day long […] |
| Q | Apta berry vinegar dishliquid mistaken forvinegar. | - Caller: So I have my friend who has ingested a little bit, because she tasted a sauce, a sauce which she took, she took it for vinegar, she ate detergent.[…] You know what they wrote below, they put “berry vinegar!” |
| R | Schwarzkopf Got2b hairgel mistaken formayonnaise. | - Patient: I’m calling because, in fact, you are going to laugh, but I actually screwed things up and took a tube of hair gel for a mayonnaise one. The gel is one of those yellow ones, I do not know if you see what I’m talking about? […]- Physician: Okay. So how much of it have you ingested?- Patient: Actually I put some on top of a tomato, then the equivalent of what … a finger. |
| S | Dishwasher tabletmistaken for nougat. | - Caller: My stepfather, who is 89, has taken a dishwasher tablet thinking it was nougat, and he swallowed but not much. |
| T | Sip of Soupline softener. | - Caller: Hello, good morning Madam, I am on vacation in Aude and my daughter inadvertently had a sip of Soupline, is it dangerous?- Physician: How old is your daughter?- Caller: well… 60 years old!- Physician: … and therefore the Soupline was poured in what?- Caller: She was distracted. She was cleaning the table, she let the stuff, she thought it was…- Physician: … and she didn’t have look at the bottle at all, she took it directly…- Caller: She took a glass.- Physician: Therefore it was in the Soupline package, do we agree?- Caller: Yes, yes, yes.- Physician: Well. Because sometimes one pours it in food bottle and this leads to even more mistakes.- Caller: No no no. She did not pay attention. I laugh but it’s not funny. […] |
1
The reader has to be informed that in the conversations we report “syrup” refers to some thick sugary liquid that people pour in an empty glass and then mix with water (generally one volume of syrup diluted with 6 volumes of water). In France they are known as “sirops” and are very popular. Among the most popular are “sirop de menthe”, literally “mint syrup” thick and green or blue, or strawberry syrup. Hence, in the context of this article syrup does not refer to something like maple syrup that can be found on the American market for example.
2
The reader has to be informed that the “Eau Précieuse” cleansing referred in this conversation literally means “precious water”. This is why labeling seems to be key in this accidental ingestion.
3
The MPCC physician was primarily informed by a physician working for the French equivalent to 911.