The poison has been prominent in both pop culture and history. Alexander the Great may have been poisoned with strychnine in his wine. Jane Stanford, wife of Stanford University founder Leland Stanford, may have been killed when someone slipped strychnine into her soda. The Invisible Man says he took strychnine as a tonic, "to take the flabbiness out of a man," in H.G. Wells' novel. It also appears as a poison in several Agatha Christie novels.