100 Years Ago: Alton Child Dies After Ingesting Strychnine Before Invention of Child Safety Caps

On May 23, 1925, 3-year-old Patricia Helen Jones of 404 Washington Avenue in Alton died after swallowing 10 to 15 pills she thought were candy. The pills were actually a laxative preparation, and according to medical testimony conducted by Coroner W.H. Bauer, each contained a minuscule quantity of strychnine, a poison that was used at the time as a powerful heart stimulant but is no longer used in medicine. The child ingested approximately a quarter grain of strychnine in the pills. The cause of death was accidental strychnine poisoning.

The evening before, a neighbor came to the home to borrow two of the pills from Patricia’s mom, Dorothy. After getting the pills for the neighbor, she put them back in the medicine cabinet. A few minutes later, she found the box empty. It quickly became clear that Patricia had consumed them. Her parents rushed her to their family doctor in Upper Alton, but despite a five-hour fight to save Patricia’s life, it was too late.

The funeral was held on Sunday, May 24, at the home of Patricia’s grandparents, Walter and Mary Ellen Hunt, in Brighton. She was buried in the Brighton City Cemetery.

At the time, the best that parents and other caretakers could do was to just try to keep hazardous items out of children’s reach. In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of young children were being harmed after ingesting medications not intended for them and other hazardous household products. Unintentional poisoning was considered the leading cause of injury to children ages 5 and under, and there were about 500 reported deaths in the United States alone. Canadian doctor Dr. Henri J. Breault, chief of pediatrics and director of the Poison Control Centre at Hotel Dieu Hospital in Windsor, Ontario, came up with the idea of child-resistant locking closures for pill bottles and worked with Peter Hedgewick, president of International Tool Limited Industries, to create the “Palm N’ Turn” pill bottle in 1967. With this invention, the incidence rate of child poisonings dropped by 91%. Soon after, the United States Congress passed the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970, authored by Frank E. Moss of Utah. This law required the use of child-resistant packaging for prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, household chemicals, and other hazardous materials that could be considered dangerous for children and gave the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to regulate this area.

Sources

“Child Eats 15 Pills, Dies 5 Hours Later.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 23, 1925. Poison Prevention Packaging Act

Dimopoulos, Lina. “Dr. Henri Breault – Child Proof Safety Caps.” The Drive Magazine, 2025.https://thedrivemagazine.com/posts/henri-breault/

“Henri J. Breault, MD.” Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, 2025.https://www.cdnmedhall.ca/laureates/henribreault

McCormick, John S. “Frank E. Moss.” Utah History Encyclopedia 1994.https://historytogo.utah.gov/frank-e-moss/

“Poison Prevention Packaging Act.” National Library of Medicine, 2023.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK572141/

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