he's fine, but iirc he said it was the worst pain he'd ever felt. it used to be a common athletic doping drug
the overall summary is that we're not talking about powdered rhino horn here. traditional 'western' medicine contains a mix of treatments that are ineffective (unicorn horn, usually bleeding), effective but dangerous (calomel, aconite, cocaine), and effective and safe (magnesia, willow bark). the same is true of traditional chinese medicine. the things listed here are all effective, perhaps too effective. i've had nightmares about cordycepin ever since i was a little kid studying organic chemistry
Knowing of strychnine only as rat poison until today (I didn’t know about the uses in the Wikipedia page) may I ask — what happened to this person?