Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog poisoned by strychnine showed delayed muscle pain and died
By Meiser, H & Hagedorn, H W·Published in The Veterinary record·2002·Institute of Pharmacology, Germany·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Atypical time course of clinical signs in a dog poisoned by strychnine.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A German shepherd was found after being loose for an hour, and its health quickly declined. After 10 hours, the dog showed signs of strychnine poisoning, including muscle tension, regurgitation, excessive drooling, and difficulty breathing, but it did not have seizures. Unfortunately, the dog died just 15 minutes after these symptoms appeared. A postmortem examination confirmed the presence of strychnine in the dog's system, but no other significant health issues were found. This case was unusual because the symptoms appeared later than typically expected in strychnine poisoning cases.
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Abstract
The general health of a German shepherd dog had deteriorated slightly when it was found after being loose for one hour. After 10 hours of observation, the dog showed signs of pain for the first time and signs of poisoning, such as tenseness of muscles, slight opisthotonus, regurgitation, salivation, mydriasis, dyspnoea and cyanosis, were observed; it died 15 minutes after showing the first clinical signs but it had no seizures or tetanic spasms at any time. A postmortem examination did not reveal any pathological changes. A screening test for alkaloids was positive for strychnine (strychnidin-10-one). The presence of strychnine was confirmed and its concentration was determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in urine (728.5 ng/ml) and in the stomach contents (44.6m microg/g). No strychnine was detected in the dog's serum, but traces of brucine (2,3-dimethoxystrychnidin-10-one), the dimethoxy derivative of strychnine, were detected. This case was compared with other strychnine poisonings recorded in the authors' laboratory over the previous six years, taking into account the species, type of samples, the clinical signs and their duration, the postmortem findings, and the concentrations of strychnine. This was the only case to show such an atypical time course of clinical signs.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12137420/