Strychnine and the murder of John Cook

In one of the most notorious cases of the 19th century, English doctor William Palmer was found guilty of murdering his friend John Cook in 1855. But why did he do it and how? We take a closer look at the case, and the man Charles Dickens described as “the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey.”

The murder of John Cook

Dr William Palmer was a physician but also a gambler and fraudster. Palmer was heavily in debt and his creditors were threatening to expose his previous frauds. After attempting to get a life insurance payout on both his brother and his servant, he set his sights on his friend John Cook. 

Dr William Palmer

John Cook had inherited some money from his family and liked to bet on the horses; something he did with Palmer (often more successfully). In November 1855, Palmer and Cook went to bet on the horses. Cook was successful and won £3,000 and went for a celebratory gin with Palmer. That night, Cook became violently ill, believing he’d been poisoned. Nevertheless, he recovered and returned to the pub with Palmer a few days later. Palmer continued to pry Cook with ‘gin’, using his status as a doctor to take responsibility for Cook. 

The next day, Palmer began collecting money from bets on Cook’s behalf before purchasing three grains of strychnine from a local doctor’s surgery. He gave Cook two ammonia pills which were probably laced with the strychnine and Cook died in agony, screaming and convulsing in pain.

Strychnine was not quite as readily available as poisons like arsenic in the 19th century. In fact it was both a poison and a cure. It was available as a rodent killer, but it was also used medicinally as a cardiac, respiratory, and digestive stimulant. It was even proposed as a recreational drug, a gold-medal-winning performance enhancer and a potential treatment for hangovers.

Strychnine is very toxic to humans and many other animals. Strychnine is so toxic to humans that it has never been ethically studied as the risks are too great. Most of our evidence comes from poisoning cases; some intentional, some accidental!

Strychnine causes respiratory failure, muscle spasms, agitation, seizures and brain death. It can happen as quickly as a few minutes after taking strychnine and can last up to 24 hours causing a very painful death. 

Palmer’s diary recording the death of Cook

How did they catch William Palmer?

Palmer likely defrauded his mother of thousands of pounds before murdering her and his brother. He may have also killed four of his children in their first years of life, so he didn’t have to feed them. But it was John Cook’s murder for which he got caught.

Cook’s stepfather, William Stevens suspected foul play and called for an investigation. Meanwhile, Palmer got another doctor to write a death certificate. A postmortem did take place, but one of the doctors was drunk and Palmer was able to interfere with the examination! He sabotaged the postmortem by keeping a jar of Cook’s poisoned stomach contents for ‘safekeeping’. The jars were eventually sent for examination but found to be of no use.

A second postmortem was carried out and Palmer tried to bribe the coroner, requesting the verdict be “natural causes”. Despite the lack of forensics, Palmer was eventually accused and tried for murder by strychnine and hanged the following year.

Does Thackray Museum of Medicine have any strychnine?

Yes! Pictured below is some of the strychnine from our collection. You can look, but whatever you do, don’t touch it!

If you’d like to see some more examples of poisons, potions and paraphernalia, you can explore Thackray Museum’s collection online here.

(Above: Thackray collection item number 2005.0321)