The Science of Fiction Q&A

Killing Werewolves for RiaWulf

I would like to know how exactly can werewolves be affected by silver and wolfsbane (how is it possible that it could kill them? I find it rather interesting)

Notes : Some tales say you have to be injured for the silver to take effect - like if you wear a silver chain it's fine but the moment it comes into contact with an open wound it's serious
And wolfsbane is a type of flower/plant but is it something in the flower that gets activated by season perhaps or after it's boiled (like in a potion mixed with something that triggers the "poison") cause for me I'd think of it as catnip 😂 the stench maybe just keeps them away?

But please clarify for me if you can and have the time

I'm going to tackle the easier one first: wolfsbane.

Wolfsbane is formally called aconitum but also called about a million other things including leopard's bane, mousebane, and woman's bane. You might guess from the name that it's poisonous.

Super poisonous.

It's a rather lovely wildflower that has varieties found all over the world. Eating any part of it will make you quite ill or kill you, but it can also be refined into poison that can be applied to arrowheads and spear-tips.

The poison is called arconitine, after the plant. Arconitine is a neurotoxin that particularly affects the uptake of neurotransmitters related to muscle control. That is, it causes paralysis, typically leading to heart and lung failure followed shortly by death. There's nothing special about it that makes it peculiarly deadly to wolves, or their lycanthropic brethren. It's pretty deadly to all animals.

If I'm free to speculate, the reason it might be particularly useful against werewolves is that the first symptoms of arconitine poisoning is skeletal muscle weakness. Were I to be fighting a werewolf, I'd be pretty keen to have a poison that made it less able to chase me. Compared to some other common toxins which can cause violent convulsions, or extreme pain that might just make them angry, this one seems ideal.

Also, as a neurotoxin, it may bypass a werewolf's supernatural abilities; it doesn't affect their muscles directly, it impairs their brain's ability to control them.

Finally, it's pretty easy to get hold of. Varieties of aconitum grow wild in many parts of the world. You can gather the toxin without having to catch snakes or scorpions, and handle it with relatively low risk. It's a neurotoxin of convenience as much as anything.

While wolfsbane appears to be a very reasonable choice for hunting big, angry animals, silver is a bit harder to justify.

The first assumption one might make for silver being a good werewolf killer, is that it is reacting to something in their physiology. Also, I'm going to assume that being blessed by the moon goddess is not a measurable chemical property.

Unfortunately, silver is a pretty stable element. That is, it doesn't react with much and when it does react, it's pretty tame. Anything that silver would react to, another metal would react more strongly to.

For example, I've seen it suggested that werewolves could have a high sulfur (brimstone) content in their blood. Silver would react to sulfur, but zinc would react much more violently. So why choose silver?

Also, copper is in the same group in the periodic table as silver but is somewhat more reactive. So anything that would react to the silver bullet, would react more strongly to copper. It's also cheaper, easier to work with, and often used in bullets. Again, why choose silver?

If we rule out straightforward chemical reactions, what else might make silver useful? Well, silver is a mild antibacterial agent.

Lycanthropy is often contagious, and usually through direct contact to the victim's blood. That opens up the possibility that werewolfism is based on a blood-borne bacterial infection (it makes more sense to be viral, but no matter). The bacteria could be particularly sensitive to silver contact. That could provide an opportunity for the bullet to cause the local trauma that bullets normally do, and also kill the lycanthropic bacteria in the area, preventing whatever supernatural powers might heal the werewolf.

We're already reaching pretty far for possibilities, so let's get a really good stretch going. How do you feel about allergies.

Metal allergies exist. Typically, they're quite mild and require repeated exposure to build up. The most common is a nickel allergy and the worst you're likely to get from that is a mild rash.

However, it is not impossible to conceive of werewolfism being tied to a strong allergic reaction to silver.

Allergic reactions are typically a result of the immune system misidentifying an antigen and causing an excessive immune response that includes swelling, vomiting, respiratory trouble, and high heart rate and can be fatal. From my reading, silver is not known to ever cause anaphylaxis, nor are any other base elements. It usually needs to be a more complex molecule.

So again, it's a stretch, but not an impossibility.

Also, I really like the idea of modern werewolves carrying EpiPens in case of improperly labeled cutlery.