STRYCHNINE. 
§ 400.] 
337 
sions are excited, the animal dies. M. Richet 1 has contributed a valuable 
memoir to the Academy of Sciences on the toxic action of strychnine. 
He has confirmed the statement of previous observers that, with artificial 
respiration, much larger doses of strychnine may be taken without fatal 
result than under normal conditions, and has also recorded some peculiar 
phenomena. Operating on dogs and rabbits, after first securing a canula 
in the trachea, and then injecting beneath the skin or into the saphena 
vein 10 mgrms. of strychnine hydrochloride, the animal is immediately, 
or within a few seconds, seized with tetanic convulsions, and this attack 
would be mortal, were it not for artificial respiration. Directly this is 
practised the attack ceases, and the heart, after a period of hurried and 
sj>asmodic beats, takes again its regular rhythm. Stronger and stronger 
doses may then be injected without causing death. As the dose is thus 
augmented, the symptoms differ. M. Richet distinguishes the following 
periods :—(1) A period of tetanus. (2) A period of convulsion, charac¬ 
terised by spasmodic and incessant contraction of all the muscles. (3) 
A little later, when the quantity exceeds 10 mgrms. per kilo., a choreic 
period, which is characterised by violent rhythmic shocks, very sudden 
and short, repeated at intervals of about three to four seconds ; during 
these intervals there is almost complete relaxation. (4) A period of 
relaxation ; this period is attained when the dose exceeds 40 mgrms. per 
kilo. Reflex action is annihilated, the spontaneous respiratory move¬ 
ments cease, the heart beats tumultuously and regularly in the severe 
tetanic convulsions at first, and then contracts with frequency but with 
regularity. The pupils, widely dilated at first, become much contracted. 
The arterial pressure, enormously raised at the commencement, 
diminishes gradually, in one case from 0-34 mm. to 0-05 mm. The 
temperature undergoes analogous changes, and during the convulsions 
is extraordinarily elevated ; it may even attain 41° or 42°, to sink in the 
period of relaxation to 36°. Dogs and rabbits which have thus received 
enormous quantities of strychnine ( e.g . 50 mgrms. per kilo.) may, in this 
way, live for several hours, but the slightest interruption to the artificial 
respiration, in the relaxed state, is followed by syncope and death. 
§ 400. Effects on Man: Symptoms. —The commencement of symp¬ 
toms may be extremely rapid, the rapidity being mainly dependent on the 
form of the poison and the manner of application. A soluble salt of 
strychnine injected subcutaneously will act within a few seconds ; 2 in 
a case of amaurosis, related by Schuler, 3 5-4 mgrms. of a soluble strychnine 
salt were introduced into the punctum lachrymale ; in less than four 
minutes there were violent tetanic convulsions. In a case related by 
1 “ De P Action de la Strychnine a tres forte dose sur les Mammiferes,” Comptes 
Rend., xci. 131. 
2 In one of M. Richet’s experiments, a soluble strychnine salt injected into a dog 
subcutaneously acted in fourteen seconds. 
3 Quoted by Taylor from Med. Times and Gazette, July 18G1. 
