Name: Strychnine
Chemical Formula: C21H22N2O2
Effect On Victim: Acute Strychnine poisoning effects usually appear very rapidly (10-15 minutes). It starts with muscle stiffness of the back or neck. This is followed by tremors and twitching, and then convulsions. These convulsions are extremely painful, lasting about a minute, and can be accompanied by momentary asphyxiation due to convulsions of respiratory muscles. There's normally a 15 minute rest interval between each convulsion, however the victim will be both exhausted and terrified as a side effect of strychnine include heightened awareness (and the convulsions are violent enough to cause your head to touch your heels, so that's already pretty scary). Death is caused by spasming of respiratory lungs causing asphyxiation.
Strychnine is a scary neurotoxin which mainly affects the nerves in the spinal chord. It binds to neuroreceptors in the spinal chords (it's an antagonist). this causes the neurones to trigger too much as it requires much less glycine, which is the usual trigger, to cause them to activate. This results in the massive convulsions. The victim may also vomit (such a common symptom of poisoning) as that is the body's only way to rapidly excrete the poison.
Lethal Dose: As little as 30mg can be fatal.
Diagnosis: There are usually no signs of Strychnine in the body post mortem, except that the jaw is occasionally twisted in a death grin. However Strychnine does stay in the body for a long time and can be detected through the use of a dry chemistry process using tandem ion tap mass spectometry. You will find peaks at 334, 319, 306, 277, 261, 246, 233 and 220.
The velos pro dual ion-trap spectroscope is the weapon of choice for identifying strychnine
That's the theory and method behind identifying one of the scariest poison out there. I can see why writers like Agatha christie are so fond of it, it's pretty dramatic. Over and out, as always feel free to comment, until next time!
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