Texas newspapers recently reported a freakish accident. A lady, while hospitalized, was accidentally injected with one of the three poisons used to kill prisoners in the state's death chamber. The horrible way she died, convulsing in pain and screaming that she was burning, shocked the readers. Efforts have been made to convince the public that lethal injection is a painless and humane way to kill human beings. Potassium is a metallic inert chemical.
Potassium chloride is the salt of potassium after it's reacted with hydrochloric acid.
It's an essential mineral in small doses, ingested like eating bananas. It's essential to muscle tone and action. That's why people who become dehydrated from working in the sun too long have severe muscle cramps, because their electrolyte balance is thrown off by potassium loss. It's the first to go when one sweats profusely. In large doses, injected intravenously, it would burn and hurt horribly, because it's a salt and because it instantly throws off the chemical balance of the blood with which it comes into contact.