Sounds like it has the same effect on mammals as fly spray does on insects?
i.e death via full body convulsions
i.e death via full body convulsions
No one is 100% sure just what the mechanism is, but it appears to have something to do with GABA. In particular cicutoxin (the active molecule) seems to hyper-excite the receptors involving GABA, which leads to seizures and death. It's interesting in that sense, it's much more violent than most nerve agents, for which the seizures and so on are just side-effects, not the lethal mechanism.
Other way round. Cicutoxin is an ANTagonist to GABA receptors, pretty much the opposite of classical sleeping pills (benzodiazepines and z-drugs). As such, taking it is probably extremely similar to delirium tremens, the potentially deadly manifestation of alcohol, benzo or z-drug withdrawal after severe addiction. A horrid way to go.
Hyper excitation of GABA receptors would lead to coma and potentially death via cardiac arrest or pulmonary aspiration -if it happens, death by benzo overdose must be a truly gentle death, but rather unreliable even with extreme dosages I would assume.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicutoxin