I have read as much literature as there is to find on the internet and my library, and as far as I can see, strychnine is not the monster people make it out to be.
Why?
1. The therapeutic index seems to be at least 20, according to the lowest LD quoted (around 15 mg). Active effects begin in the submilligram range. Better than alcohol, apparently.
2. Strychnine has useful effects. Apparently, it has nootropic (at least on rats) effect, and perhaps "psychedelic" properties. It is claimed to markedly sharpen the senses by its actions on the spinal cord. Strychnine is in the 1917 british pharmacopeia, and is still used in chinese and ayurvedic medicine. (carefully, of course)
Now, it seems very likely to me that you did not do any searching regarding this matter before applying bad karma. Please keep in mind that most of the drugs discussed on this entire board are considered "hideous poisons" by many people, in the same knee-jerk manner as you condemn strychnine. Why? Because "everybody knows its bad". Because it's used to kill people in movies and books. Because it is used as a poison. I call that overdose, and most of the drugs on this board will kill you just as dead when taken to excess, if not as impressively.
Please, check these facts. Make sure the world is as you think it is, before blasting others.
Now. For my other point. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post, or maybe you didn't read closely enough, but I was asking a GENERAL question. Strychnine is my alkaloid of interest at the moment, but I want to know how to take any given alkaloidal compound's chemical structure and calculate its solubility. Is this not worthy of discussion at the Hive? At least for me, I can anticipate coming across other compounds sufficiently rare or uncharacterised such that solubility data is not available. I would prefer to at least have a rough idea before setting up any type of extraction. If this is off-topic in the general chemistry forum, perhaps you could suggest a better place to put it?
Well, anyway, I am just a bit annoyed.
Today somebody insulted my favorite alkaloid.
By the way, the reason I asked is because I don't like eating unmeasured amounts of ignatius bean. It is very unscientific, and perhaps, as you pointed out...dangerous.
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