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Half problem is that people tend to assume that paladin= Right. Paladin= the most good, the highest good, a specific form of good above the others. Therefore disagreeing about what a paladin should or should not do is disagreeing about right and wrong.
That is not what a paladin is. A paladin has a specific opinion on what the best way to be good is. That opinion is not any more valid or any more good than the most neutral good pacifist tree hugging hippie druid or the chaotic good freedom fighter fighter lining the underground railroad with the bones of slavers.
Half problem is that people tend to assume that paladin= Right. Paladin= the most good, the highest good, a specific form of good above the others. Therefore disagreeing about what a paladin should or should not do is disagreeing about right and wrong.
That is not what a paladin is. A paladin has a specific opinion on what the best way to be good is. That opinion is not any more valid or any more good than the most neutral good pacifist tree hugging hippie neutral druid or the chaotic good freedom fighter fighter lining the underground railroad with the bones of slavers.
Yes! A paladin is also a mortal and fallible. They are not machines with encoded instructions. They are divine servants who, I assume, could pray for guidance, talk to a cleric, consult holy books and so on.
This constant NEED to prove how paladins can fall for stubbing their toe and cursing or attempting to heal someone with what CAN be a poisonous substance or having a sexual relation or whatever is mind-boggling.
As an aside, perhaps Wolfsbane is listed under poison is because there isn't a section for "Sort of Poison Medicines"?
A similar issue did come up with a druid being magically compelled to put on a suit of metal armor.
In both cases, the question is raised as to whether the paladin or druid's code is intended to be treated as a moral code or as an arbitrary set of taboos that you are punished for violating even if you do not know or have no power over what you are doing.
The story of Oedipus illustrates an example of this sort of taboo. When he and his wife/mother discovered that they were in fact mother and son, they were both horrified into extreme actions (with Oedipus blinding himself and Jocasta killing herself). For them, their ignorance of what they were doing did nothing to free them from the horror of the broken taboo.
So, to answer the question of whether a paladin would fall for administering wolfsbane to an infected lycanthrope, you would have to decide whether the rule against using poison was simply part of a moral rule against dishonorable behavior (in which case using it for clearly medicinal purposes to help a friend is fine) or is an absolute taboo for which no excuse is acceptable (in which case he could fall for such things as attacking with a weapon that was poisoned without his knowledge).
The druid in leather armor is an old celtic tradition about iron blocking magic, as well as geases celtic heroes had. (Cu cullinaine for example could neither refuse hospitality nor eat horse flesh. Someone found out about both and offered him a bit of horsemeat on the side of the road)
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The consequences of violating druidic and paladin codes definitely do support the idea that the restriction on druids wearing metal armor is a taboo (as the method for recovering from it is simply to wait for a certain amount of time to pass after you remove it -- suggesting that the druid is suffering from some sort of ritual impurity) while the paladin's code is primarily a moral one (as you need to have Atonement cast on you to reverse the effects of falling from grace as a paladin).
