In the Old West, the rancher’s cupboard contained a myriad of hazardous substances, ranging from rat poison and lye (caustic soda for making soap) to lead bars (to melt and cast into bullets) and patent medicines containing mercury, arsenic and even cocaine. One of my favorite frontier “rat-killers” on that shelf (aside from arsenic, red squill and thallium sulfate) is the botanically-derived alkaloid compound strychnine. In his 1845 classic A Treatise on Poisons, Dr. Robert Chri
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