{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1800",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1800,
    "subject": "Bullets of power? Lead poisoning?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-09-30T21:50:52+00:00",
    "last": "1999-09-30T21:50:52+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0145@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-09-30T21:50:52+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Bullets of power? Lead poisoning?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Greene, Carlton wrote:\n\nFortunately for Dorcas, they were not of the pyrotechnic variety described\nelsewhere in TBOTNS -- otherwise, her regurgitation of them in Thrax might\nhave sent her the way of little Severian -- gone in a flash."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Um, are you referring to the \"bullets of power\" Baldanders provided for\nthe lake people? Baldanders told us what they were: \"Natrium\" - i.e.\nsodium metal. _Sword_ contains a pretty good description of what happens\nwhen a slug of sodium about the size of your thumb or more contacts\nwater: there's a violent explosion, the sodium partially melts and\nbreaks up, and each piece falls and repeats the cycle until it is spent.\nVery sudden and energetic reaction, comparable to a partial stick of\ndynamite. Sev's act of jumping into the water to set off the explosion\nthat ripped the reed boat to shreds was quite realistic, except I don't\nsee how Sev could have known to do that! I have worked as a chemist in\nchemical disposal, so I'm acquainted with the phenomenon. I was told\nsomeone once attempted to dispose of waste sodium by throwing a sealed\ndrum off a surplus PT boat and then withdrawing to extreme range to\nshoot holes in it with a sniper rifle. They almost didn't make it,\nrunning away at wide open throttle!\n\nNo, I think these bullets are of the sort the kelau use in their slings.\nThe firework arbalests used a type of bolt or dart."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It also raises some rather odd toxicology questions -- could a normal human\nbeing really walk around for as long as she did with a belly full of lead\nshot without suffering brain damage or, at the very least, a really bad\ntummy ache?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Now THAT's a great question! Gastric juices would surely leach lead, and\nDorcas walked aropund for about 3 months like that? Perhaps her illness\ncould be interpreted as lead poisoning? It would be pretty rough on a\nhypothetical fetus, too."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}