Strychnine Antidotes

"V. H., a white woman, aged 19, well developed and well nourished, was brought into the Indianapolis City Hospital at 5:15 p. m., Oct. 26, 1928. She had taken 100 one-thirtieth grain (0.002 gm.) strychnine sulphate tablets at 1 p. m. after a heavy meal. . . . She immediately had a severe generalized convulsion with opisthotonos [body arched], trismus [lockjaw], risus sardonicus [a taut, toothy grin], complete extension of the extremities, and cyanosis [purpling of the skin and mucous membrane]. . . . She was given 81 grains (0.55 gm.) of sodium amytal intravenously. The convulsion stopped and the patient relaxed completely and went to sleep. . . . On the third day she was normal and was released from the hospital. This is the first case of strychnine poisoning treated with sodium amytal."

Ten more rescues from strychnine's cruel death during succeeding years and tests on scores of poisoned rabbits warranted a report last week that the soluble barbiturates (sleep-producing drugs, easily available everywhere) provide the long-sought perfect antidote to strychnine.* Drs. Gerald Fidelis Kempf, Joseph Thomas Carry McCallum and Leon Grotius Zerfas made the report to the American Medical Association. Lilly Laboratory for Clinical Research furnished the rabbits, Indianapolis City Hospital the patients, Indiana University School of Medicine the learning.

Strychnine kills about three people each week in the U. S. Some take strychnine for suicide. Some use it for murder.* But the most frequent cause of strychnine poisoning Is the chocolate or sugar coated pill kept in the bathroom cabinet as a laxative or "tonic." Children eat the pills for candy, die in convulsions. In the current Journal of the A. M. A. the Indianapolis clinicians give specific instructions for intravenous administration of sodium amytal, sodium pentobarbital or phenobarbital sodium. They note, as have other investigators, that the antidotes themselves are poisonous in large doses. Specific antidote for their poisoning is strychnine.

*Preferably sodium amytal, sodium pentobarbital and phenobarbital sodium.

*As in the New Jersey dachshund murders (TIME, Feb. 13).

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