Talk:Strychnine

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Wives of Vincent van Gogh?

The "Notable strychnine poisonings" listed Margot Begemann as one of the wives of Vincent van Gogh. He was never married. I removed this total inaccuracy.

Use as a stimulant

Someone should add information about the stimulant properties of Strychnine.

1 year later

UPDATE: (1 YEAR LATER) This paragraph was inserted by one who has experienced STRYCHNINE INGESTION first hand and donated the previous sentence almost a year ago. My ingestion of 1/8 teaspoon of the chemical (approximately 50 years old, and coloured purple), orally with water brought on severe muscle contractions, coming in waves, within 5 to 10 minutes. At this stage, i called the "medical emergency" no. and was advised to admit to hospital. I drove 7km to the hospital in a state of extreme alertness, with no pain but increasing rigidity/agitation and anxiety. I alighted from the vehicle, and my body, after about 20 minutes had elapsed since ingestion, was almost totally rigid. My legs and arms would not bend,and to i imagine my gait to be that of a robot as i made my way into the hospital. As i lay there for the next 5 hours, suffering these great muscle seizures, the nurses complained of a terrible decomposition smell emenating from my body. The hospital staff administered charcoal and advised me that respiratory collapse could be immenent. VALIUM was given intravenously, at intervals, which almost immediately stopped the contractions. The after affects of the chemical seem to be continued wasting if the major muscles, as experienced in long distance runners who push themselves overly, whilst dehydrated. Regards Brendan.

This was posted in the article. It is original research. JFW | T@lk 08:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

THe last link after the article "fact sheet on strychnine" is dead. Could someone update this?

Doping

I don't understand how this helped him run faster. Only negative aspects are covered in the article. Could someone in the know elaborate on this.

Muscles are capable of exerting much more force than the brain normally allows them to, probably as a protective mechanism against damage to muscles and tendons. Greater than normal force is seen when people "jump" a long way as a result of electric shock, and presumably strychnine poisoning can have a similar effect. I do not know much about this and am just speculating, but maybe a low dose caused very mild spasms which allowed his muscles to do something like this? The whisky might have prevented more serious uncontrollable spasms, as according to the article, depressants are one method of treating strychnine poisoning. (I do not recommend that anyone tries this). 82.5.167.145 16:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dogs?

While strychnine kills dogs, it kills plenty of other creatures too. Why is this in category Dogs but not in category Poisons?? Knowledge of strychnine isn't required to own a dog-- it just helps to know that it's poisonous to them. Next thing you know, aspirin is going to be under the cats category. 82.93.133.130 09:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --Eyrian 09:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that this article needs to be in the category of poisons, I'm not sure that it is inappropriate to have it in the category of dog health. Dogs are the most common domestic animal to be poisoned by strychnine, and therefore it is somewhat related to the topic of dog health. However, it seems unlikely that anyone would search for it there, so I won't put it back in. --Joelmills 03:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with the role in dog health, but I figure there's either a Dog Health page with links to here, or a reader concerned that their dog has been poinsoned by strychnine would come directly here. I certainly don't advocate taking out the dog health info that's within the article-- we've added dog and cat health to the aspirin page too. My beef was only with the categories on the page bottom... not sure about Wikidogs tag either, but it's harmless. 82.93.133.130 14:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Antidote to strychnine

Please note error in text.

Dantrolene although it does have muscle relaxant properties, is not classified in pharmacology as a muscle relaxant, and is certainly NOT a specific antidote. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.226.39.33 (talk) 23:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Be bold and change it yourself - this is a wiki... :-) If somehow possible, please provide reliable referencesfor your edits. Cacycle 02:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How does it work?

Could someone help provide a scientific explanation? cyclosarin 03:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia

I am not going to start a revert war regarding the Trivia tag, but I think it is inappropriate in this article. Few Wikipedia editors are skilled enough to integrate those bits of information into the main text in a sensible way. If you think it should be done, go ahead and do it, but it is not a good idea to ask any passer by to integrate it, as not everyone has the ability to express it in a structured and readable way that does not distort the flow of the main article. Mlewan 17:24, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Few people are skilled enough to integrate bullet points into prose? I hope not. It seems to me to be a matter of working up the necessary effort, which a small annoyance tends to do. And it doesn't disrupt the flow of the article any more than a bulleted series of unrelated points does. --Eyrian 19:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and took care of it. It did take some effort, but that was to supply the missing references. --Joelmills 19:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work. --Eyrian 23:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me for saying so, but that was an awful edit. If I come here to read about Strychnine, I want the main text to be about the poison and not garage rock bands. The main text got clumsy, unstructured and filled up with irrelevant data for the poison itself. Besides it suddenly got virtually impossible to search for cases where strychnine has been used, if that is what I am looking for. Mlewan 05:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're more than welcome to put it back the way it was, if you like. On second thought, I'll do it for you, and you can construct it to your preferences. --Joelmills 01:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I just added back the references you had researched before. It would be a pity to lose them. Mlewan 04:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]