the quantity was increased to a grain and a half. But the first dose caused anxiety and excitability, in three hours stupor and loss of speech, and at length violent tetanic convulsions, which proved fatal in three hours and three-quarters.[1] A fatal case, occasioned by the large dose of two scruples, has been recorded by a German physician, Dr. Blumhardt. In fifteen minutes, imperfect vomiting was brought on by emetics. At this time, the patient, a lad of seventeen, lay on his back, quite stiff, and with incipient fits of locked-jaw. The spasms gradually extended to the rest of the body, till at last violent fits of general tetanus were established, under which the whole body became as stiff as a board, the arms spasmodically crossed over the chest, the legs extended, the feet bent, so that the soles were concave, the breathing arrested, the eyeballs prominent, the pupils dilated and not contractile, and the pulse hurried and irregular. In the second severe fit he died, one hour and a half after taking the poison.[2] I have known very dangerous tetanic spasm induced by so small a dose as two-thirds of a grain of the ordinary impure strychnia of the shops; and Dr. Pereira describes a case, communicated by a friend, where death was occasioned by a dose of half a grain administered three times a day.[3] As each fit of spasm went off, respiration, which was found to have ceased, was maintained artificially; but no sooner did natural breathing return, than the paroxysm of tetanus returned also; and at length artificial inflation of the lungs failed to restore life.
The only accounts I have seen of the morbid appearances after death from strychnia are in the cases of Dr. Booth and Dr. Blumhardt. In the former, the muscles were in a rigid state, the fingers contracted, the vessels of the brain gorged, the membranes of the spinal cord highly injected; and four patches of extravasated blood were found between the spinal arachnoid and the external membrane. In the latter, twenty-four hours after death, there was general lividity of the skin, and extraordinary rigidity of the muscles. Fluid blood flowed in abundance from the spinal cavity, where the veins were gorged, the pia mater injected, the spinal column softened at its upper part, and here and there almost pulpy. There was also congestion and softening of the brain. The head and great vessels were flaccid, and contained scarcely any blood. The inner membrane of the stomach and intestines presented some redness, but not more than is often seen independently of irritation there.
Strychnia has been found by Pelletier and Caventou in four species of Strychnos, the S. nux vomica, Sancti Ignatii, Colubrina, and Tieuté; and from the researches of MM. Martius and Herberger on the composition and properties of the American poison Wourali, it is also probably contained in the S. guianensis.[4] Vauquelin could not find it in the S. pseudo-kina, which is destitute of bitterness.
