The top 10 signs you've been poisoned with strychnine

Sir Charles Bell, 1809, Public domain

While poking around the internet for strychnine I came across this excellent (?) list of the 10 main symptoms of strychnine poisoning from the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry:

1. Initial symptoms are tightness and twitching of the muscles, agitation, and hyperreflexia. 
2. Stiffness of the body. 
3. Lockjaw. 
4. Frothing of the mouth. 
5. Cessation of respiration. 
6. Tetanus-like attacks appear every 10-15 minutes. During these attacks the eyeballs protrude and the pupils enlarge. 
7. Severe cyanosis, which disappears after the attack subsides. 
8. The attacks (each lasting about 3-4 minutes) appear to be spontaneous while other times they are the result of external stimuli, i.e. noises, slight movements, or flashes of light. The patient never loses consciousness. 
9. When the poisoning is left untreated each attack lasts longer than the previous and the interval between them grows shorter. 
10. Up to 10 attacks occur before death or recovery. This could happen from 10 minutes to 3 hours and is a result of asphyxiation or inner tissue paralysis.

Sounds pleasant. Not.

My reading has informed me that someone with a full stomach, such as Uncle Charley after eating dinner at his fraternity, takes longer to die. Charley took more than two or three hours to die, while David Puskin only took 20-30 minutes since he had just woken up.

Since noise or flashes of light can also trigger the spasms, I can only imagine what a panicked fraternity house on a Saturday night sounded like and what that did to Charley's state.

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Big Man on Campus

Charles H. Huls

It has been ninety-six years since my great-uncle, Charles Henry Huls, died in agony on Saturday, January 31, 1925. Ninety-six years since my late grandfather either telephoned or telegraphed their parents, who lived fifty miles southeast of The Ohio State University, and basically told them to drop everything and get to Columbus.

NOW.

Did they rouse their driver and have him drive them up to the boys' fraternity house? Did they have any car trouble or flat tires? Or did they catch a late Hocking Valley train and frantically wonder if their Golden Boy, the Heir Apparent, was okay as the train slowly chugged towards Columbus.

Was it forced to stop at each and every single town and crossing?

• Logan
• Enterprise
• Rockbridge
• Sugar Grove
• Lancaster
• Hooker
• Carroll
• Lockville
• Winchester
• Groveport
• Edwards
• Valley Crossing
• Columbus!

Sadly, my great-grandparents did not make it to the fraternity house in time to say their goodbyes. Understandably, my late grandfather, Fred E. Huls, didn't like to talk about his brother's death. I know he was in their en suite bathroom about to take some cold medicine when the doctor called him back in for Charley's death throes at 10:30 p.m. Ninety-six years ago Grandpa held his adored older brother and roommate while Charley died. Charley was 22. Grandpa was only 20.

But what happened? Sure, Charley had felt poorly all week due to a cold and an abscessed tooth but healthy young men don't die from that, do they? As it later turned out, they did not.

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