Strychnine

a vegetable poison from Java. It is a colorless, prismatic, crystalline substance extracted from the nuxvomica and the seeds of other plants of the same genus. These strychnine-producing plants are peculiar to the East Indies, particularly Java. Strychnine is without odor, but it is intensely bitter. One part of strychnine may be detected in 20,000 parts of water merely by the bitter taste imparted. Strychnine is an alkaloid--an energetic poison. A grain is a fatal dose for a man. Wheat, oats, or corn, steeped in water containing a little strychnine, may be dropped about their holes and runways to rid a farm of rats, gophers, or prairie dogs. If meal be stirred in after the grain has been soaked, the bitter taste is obscured, and the bait is more likely to be taken. Strychnine is the poison most often used for coyotes also. See Poison