Originating from the seeds of Strychnos nux vomica, a small plant found in South-East Asia, strychnine has become one of the most well-known, and notorious, chemicals.
Strychnine was formally discovered in 1818 by the chemists Joseph-Bienaime Caventou and Pierre-Joseph Pelletier. Upon its discovery, it was singled out among the alkaloids for its unique interlocking ring structure. Initially, production of strychnine was slow due to the inefficiencies of natural extraction. This was eventually solved in 1949 by eventual Nobel Prize winner Robert Burns Woodward, who was experienced in the synthesis of other complex organic molecules, such as quinine.
Strychnine is notorious not for its chemical past, but for its contribution to medical history. The chemical interferes with nervous system response by preventing glycine molecules from interacting with inhibitory receptor cells. Once triggered, the nervous system signals cannot be turned off.
In small doses, strychnine acts as a stimulant. Athlete Thomas J. Hicks owes his gold medal in the marathon at the 1904 Olympics to a brandy-strychnine cocktail. In large doses, over roughly 300 milligrams, strychnine is toxic. Lethal doses act within 20 minutes of absorption by the body, triggering a series of uncontrollable and painful muscle spasms that increase with intensity and violence as time progresses until death—at times mid-convulsion—due to asphyxia. A common feature of strychnine poisoning is the risus sardonicus, where the facial muscles contort to give a smile, à la the Joker. The visible and intensely dramatic effects of strychnine poisoning have made it popular with killers both real and fictional.
Currently, strychnine finds use as a pesticide for rodents and birds, and within neurological research, where its effects allow researchers to map out various brain pathways. The future of strychnine in neurological research is a promising one, but the chemical itself still remains a bitter pill to swallow, literally.
