Stimulating questions

Nelson Rosenberg was a name I kept seeing in conjunction with the poisonings so I decided I needed to research him more. Rosenberg was a 23-year-old pharmacy student who was with David Puskin on the night before his death -- and had purchased a bottle of strychnine from the Hi-King Drug Co. When questioned, Rosenberg explained that he had broken his glasses and used the drug to help focus on his studies. 

I found this in the Friday, Feb. 6, 1926 edition of the Athens Messenger:

FIND STUDENT WHO BOUGHT POISON TO USE AS STIMULANT

Cleveland Youth Freed 

After Telling Officers 

His Story 

    COLUMBUS, Feb. 6. -- First admission that one of the Pharmacy college students of Ohio State university had purchased strychnine in a Coumbus [sic] pharmacy, came today during the question of Nelson Rosenberg, who said he was a son of Dr. Emmanuel Rosenberg, 16907 Wade Park, east Cleveland.

    A rumor spread over the campus early today that a Pharmacy student had purchased fifty grains of strychnine in a downtown drug store. Hurriedly checking up on this report, Deputy Carson learned that Rosenberg had purchased 12 one fiftieth grain strychnine tablets at a store Wednesday night. Questioned by probers at the college, Rosenberg said he had bought the drug as a stimulant. Probers said he told the druggist from whom he obtained the strychnine, after first having been refused in two other stores, that he wished it for use in treating a cold.

    Police Prosecutor Chester said that Rosenberg had declared that he never before had purchased strychnine in a drugstore. Chester also said that Rosenberg had declared he had seen a supply of strychnine in a bottle on a stock shelf in the Freshman laboratory in the basement of the building, and that other students had told him they had also seen it. Rosenberg was hurried downstairs to the laboratory where he pointed out the shelf. Phil Mackoff, instructor in charge of the laboratory, however denied vigorously that strychnine, or any other like toxic poison, was ever used in the laboratory, or kept there. Chester said Rosenberg was confronted with the student who said he had admitted seeing the drug on the shelf and that this student denied the story.

    Rosenberg was released after having been detailed in the lecture room where the investigation is going on for about forty minutes.

According to Bucky Cutright, Rosenberg received his degree in July [June?] of 1925 and followed in his father’s footsteps, practicing medicine in the Cleveland area until his death in 1991. 

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