Can you tell me or refer me to any one case in which the effect of the strychnia affection or paroxysm in a fatal case has been as long after the ingestion of the poison as in Cook’s case on Tuesday night?—Yes. In a case communicated to the Lancet of 31st August, 1850, p. 259, by Mr. Bennett, one grain and a half of strychnia, taken by mistake, destroyed the life of a healthy young female in an hour and a half, which is remarkable, as no symptoms appeared for an hour.
May I take it that is the longest period which has elapsed between the ingestion of the poison and the commencement of the symptoms on record?—No, I think not.
Do you know a single case in which the symptoms have manifested themselves as long as an hour and a half after the ingestion of the poison?—No, I do not.
Do you know any case of strychnia poison in which the patient has recovered from a paroxysm in as short a time as Mr. Cook did, he being well before the morning?—I do not remember any, but I can conceive in medical practice such cases.
Do you know any case of strychnia poison in which there was so long an intermission of the paroxysm as between the two fits of Monday and Tuesday night?—No, I do not.
As you choose to go upon rabbits, do you not know that it constantly happens, even in rabbits, that the spasm and the contraction instantly cease immediately with death, or just before death, and that the body becomes perfectly pliant?—No, I do not. It does so in some instances, in one out of five cases.
Alfred Taylor
Do you agree in this opinion of Dr. Christison—“I have not altered the statement as to this point in the former edition, that is, that the rigidity supervenes at an early period after death; yet I strongly suspect the authors who describe the spasm which precedes death to continue as it were without the rigidity that occurs after death must have observed inaccurately, for, in the numerous experiments that I have made and witnessed upon animals, flaccidity of limb continued after death”?—Dr. Christison speaks from his own experience; I speak from my own.
Have you any reason to say that the clenching of the hand is a distinctive feature of strychnia poison?—It is the result of violent tetanic spasms. It occurs in other violent spasms.
In all forms of convulsion?—No; the great point is this, that in tetanus it remains so; in other convulsions it comes and goes.