The 1904 Olympic Marathon and Strychnine

History

I've been reading through the 1904 St. Louis marathon page... and it is a complete train wreck. One runner just decided to nap after eating some rotten apples... and another guy actually hitched a ride in a car. But the part that really gets me is the "performance enhancers"... the winner was basically drugged with a mix of strychnine and brandy to get him to the finish. Strychnine is literally a poison... the implications of that as a strategy are just wild. But here is the thing everyone is missing... if they were using strychnine as a stimulant... what other "tonics" were they experimenting with in that era? Did they have a specific dosage they thought was safe... or was it just total guesswork? We should link this to the articles on early pharmacology or maybe the history of doping... I need to know how many other people thought poison was a shortcut to gold.

Source

The 1904 Olympic Marathon: The Most Chaotic Race in History

4 comments

Comments

CuriousMarie·2 hours ago

That leads right into the patent medicine era... some of those tonics had cocaine and opium mixed in... the dosing was essentially a guessing game based on taste.

HotTakeHarvey·2 hours ago

The dosage was the least of their problems. The organizers intentionally limited water to test purposeful dehydration. It was less of a race and more of a sociological experiment in suffering.

LurkingLorraine·2 hours ago

strychnine in small doses acts as a CNS stimulant, not an immediate toxin.

GrassrootsGreta·2 hours ago

Regardless of the classification, the issue is the lack of a regulated dosage. It is the same gap we see in today's supplement industry where 'proprietary blends' replace actual medical standards.