Background: Herbs can be toxic and may be even life-threatening. The mixture of different plants and herbs made by traditional healer and their canvassing on the street attract general people. Here, we report four cases of severe herbal poisoning. Case presentation: In 2008, four young people rushed to DMC Hospital in the early morning with a history of taking herbal medicine (tonic) on that night for gratification. About 3– 4 h after ingestion, they experienced repeated vomiting and abdominal pain. Two patients deteriorated within the hours after admission with restlessness, progressive unconsciousness, and died soon after. The other two patients absconded from the hospital, including the person who prepared the tonic. Screening of the tonic by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry did not reveal toxic components. Discussion: The suspected herbs used for the preparation of that tonic were Santalum album (Chandan wood) which contains Santalol and other etheric oils; Plantago ovata (Ispaghula Husk) containing diverse alkaloids, phenols, etc.; and Mimosa pudica which is the common Mimosa and contains the alkaloid Mimosine. The nature of the tonic and source of the intoxication could not be finally elucidated. Conclusion: The described cases of unknown herbal poisoning in Bangladesh highlight the need for awareness campaigns targeting the population at risk.

Most authors believe that the optimal treatment for pulmonary hydatid cyst is surgery. Albendazole has been used as a prophylactic measure for reducing recurrence rate but there are some controversies about this strategy. Some researchers have described the increased risk of spontaneous rupture of cysts following albendazole treatment. In this case report, we present a case of spontaneous rupture of pulmonary hydatid cyst with fatal outcome that may be the adverse cause of albendazole.

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Introduction: Due to the high number of road traffic accidents in Iran and the significant rate of death and adverse complications caused by these accidents, it seems necessary to investigate the related factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of traffic accidents and the factors affecting the death of hospitalized patients due to accidents. Methods: In this study, injured patients due to traffic accidents referring to the trauma hospital in Shiraz were randomly entered into the study for 6 months. The factors affecting the occurrence of an accident including the risk factors before the accident, during the incident, and at the time of hospitalization were investigated in the patient's mortality rate. A multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate the effect of factors on the patients’,chances of death. Results: In this study, 563 injured patients from traumatic accidents admitted to the recovery unit for a period of 6 months were investigated. Injuries and death in the first eight hours of admission are significantly higher than other hours. The results show that damage to the age group of 15-39 years, Glasgow coma score, injury severity score, trauma injury severity score, revised trauma score, head and neck injury score, and the history of having a surgery significantly increase the chance of death. Among the areas of injury, having head and neck injuries as well as abdomen injury makes the chance of death 3. 36 and 6. 62 fold, respectively. Conclusion: It is necessary to observe safety rules for drivers and passengers of the car more than before. Also, patients referring to trauma centers should be prioritized and treated based on the existing classification criteria and the risk assessment of death according to prognostic factors.