398 
POISONING BY STRYCHNIA. 
doses, as a tonic, and in rather larger quantities it is given as 
a stimulant to the nervous system. 
“ Its very peculiar and extraordinarily energetic effects, 
when taken in a poisonous quantity, have excited the inte- 
rest of physiologists, and hecatombs of cats, and dogs, and 
mice, and guinea-pigs have been sacrificed in their researches. 
In 1809, Majendie and Delille read a paper before the French 
Institution on the result of their experiments on animals. 
Ten grains taken internally killed a dog in forty-five minutes, 
and a grain and a half thrust into a wound killed another in 
seven minutes. The symptoms were, in every case, of the 
usual character. The animal, a few minutes after the intro- 
duction of the poison, becomes agitated, and tumbles ; in a 
short time it is seized with stiffness and starting of the limbs, 
which increase until a violent general spasm ensues, in which 
the head is bent back, the limbs are extended and rigid, the 
spine stiffened, and respiration checked by the fixing of the 
chest. An interval of ease follows, and then another 
paroxysm comes on, and another and another, till the animal 
perishes, suffocated or exhausted. Tetanus or locked jaw is 
the only disease that produces similar effects, but never proves 
so rapidly fatal. 
ee The action of the poison appears to be almost entirely 
confined to the spinal cord and the nerves of which it is the 
centre. Stannius found that the removal of the brain in 
frogs, did not interfere with the effects of the poison; and 
Eumert’s experiments lead to the same conclusion ; he found 
that if the spinal cord be destroyed after the symptoms have 
come on, the convulsions cease instantaneously, although the 
circulation continues for some minutes. In man, however, 
there is occasionally stupor, while in other instances the 
sensibility is heightened, and the faculties are unnaturally 
acute. 
“ Plants, as well as animals, are affected by this poison. 
Professor Marut states, that a quarter of an hour after im- 
mersing the root of a French bean in a solution of five grains 
of the extract of nux vomica in an ounce of water, the petals 
became curved downwards, and in twelve hours the plant 
died. Fifteen grains of the same extract were inserted in the 
stem of a lilac-tree, and the w r ound closed ; in thirteen days 
the neighbouring leaves began to wither. 
cc After all the attention that has been bestowed upon nux 
vomica, the skill of man has been unable to detect any cer- 
tain antidote. Its effects during life are too characteristic 
ever to be mistaken : and, after death, unlike most vegetable 
poisons, it is almost invariably to be found in the stomach of 
