Botanic Remedies 239 



action has recently been demonstrated, the drug 

 seeming to linger in the nervous tissues; it is elim- 

 inated slowly. 



Small doses also stimulate the special senses. 



Larger doses make the muscles stiff and heighten 

 reflex excitability, external stimuli resulting in motor 

 excitation, which may, in full dosage, result in a 

 convulsion. The medullary gray matter is stimu- 

 lated, as are the respiratory, cardiac, and vaso-motor 

 centers. 



The drug does not act strongly on the mammalian 

 heart. Quite opposite to digitalis, strychnine does 

 not aid in cardiac failure and auricular fibrillation, 

 though it may be a cardiac tonic. Blood-pressure 

 is raised, probably from the excessive muscular con- 

 tractions induced by the drug. 



TOXICOLOGY. A feeling of uneasiness and reflex 

 irritability is followed by muscular twitching, a 

 sense of suffocation, and characteristic convulsions. 

 They are first clonic and then tonic, opisthotonos 

 resulting. There are remissions, with complete mus- 

 cular relaxation; increasing in intensity, the seizures 

 affecting the facial muscles and producing the 

 characteristic risus sardonicus. The patient remains 

 conscious but suffers great pain, perhaps with vom- 

 iting and purging. Finally asphyxia, cyanosis, 

 dilated pupils, coma, exhaustion, and death. Three 

 or four seizures are usually fatal. The minimum 

 lethal dose in an adult is % grain. 



Give emetics, the best one being apomorphine 

 hydrochloride. Wash out the stomach if the patient 

 is seen early, adding potassium permanganate to 

 the water. If a fatal dose has been taken, by the 

 time the physician arrives these measures are useless; 



