2 H. EPPS ON THE KOLA BEAN. 



The earliest reference to scientific inquiry I have met with is a 

 record in Dr. Attfield's article (which will be referred to later on) 

 of several papers in the " Journal de Pharmacie " for 1832, p. 702, 

 which matter, however, I have not seen. In 1865 Mr. W. F. 

 Daniell, M.D., F.L.S., read a lengthy communication before the 

 Pharmaceutical Society on Kola (" Pharni. Journ." [2], vi, 450), 

 and Mr. John Attfield, Ph.D., F.C.S., followed with a paper on its 

 analysis and food-value {Tdetn, p. 457). Mr. Thomas Christy, 

 F.L.S., has also since 1878 given his attention to Kola, and been 

 instrumental in making its properties widely known in this 

 country, having dealt with the subject at considerable length 

 (" New Commercial Plants and Drugs," Nos. 8 and 9). 



In France Messrs. E. Heckel and F. Schlagdenkauffen have 

 examined the Kola bean systematically, dealing principally with 

 its natural history, social and political relations, chemical composi- 

 tion, and physiological properties. The result was a lengthy 

 memoir read before the Union Scientifique des Pharmaciens de 

 France, a long and interesting abstract of which appeared in the 

 tl Pharmaceutical Journal," January 26th, 1884. There have also 

 been a few later notices on the action of the Kola bean, including 

 one by Mr. Watson Smith, F.C.S., on its effects in excess of 

 drinking (" Pharm. Journ.," June, 1886). 



Just to give some idea of the marvellous properties claimed for 

 Kola, it may be here recorded that the beans are said to be a 

 powerful disinfectant, a sure preventive against dysentery and 

 liver complaint, also enabling those eating them to support 

 lengthened strain and labour without other sustenance. Kola 

 bean has been recommended in cases of nervous depression, 

 sleeplessness, melancholia, and suicidal mania, also in heart and 

 kidney disease. But it is as a reputed remedy for dipsomania that 

 the Kola bean is now attracting the most attention. At the 

 Linnean Society, in 1884, one of the members gave an interesting 

 account of the properties of the Kola bean from actual experience. 

 He stated that the foreman of his estate in Jamaica (where the 

 Kola was introduced about 1635) was in the habit of getting 

 drunk every Saturday, and shortly before he had to go on duty 

 every Monday morning, his wife used to reduce a Kola bean into a 

 paste, which the man was made to swallow, and in thirty minutes 

 he was quite clear in his head again. Further, he maintained that 

 after the use of the Kola cure, a drunkard cannot return to stimu- 



