GEXEKAL ACTION. 463 



purging, and loss of muscular power or co-ordination. The 

 effects of the poison on man, as described by some missionaries, 

 are vomiting, redness and glazing of the eyes, and loss of the 

 power of contracting the muscles throughout the body ; so that 

 when the poison has fairly commenced its action on the system, 

 the sufferer is incapable of standing or walking, and the head 

 rolls heavily about the breast and shoulders. Its action on 

 animals was tried by Santos,* who says that the decoction pro- 

 duced alternate dilatation and contraction of the pupils, 

 appearance of delirium, violent retching, vomiting, symptoms of 

 tetanus, and finally death. Professor Liebreich has also in- 

 vestigated its physiological action, but we have not yet seen a 

 full account of his experiments. 



A small quantity of the bark having been brought from 

 Angola by Mr. Monteiro, who had obtained it with consider- 

 able difficulty, he kindly gave it to us, and we began a minute 

 investigation of its physiological action, so as to ascertain not 

 only the exact manner in which death is produced by the drug, 

 but the mode in which the various functions are affected by it, 

 and its possible uses in medicine. 



General Action of Casca, 



Beginning our experiments with the simplest forms of life, 

 and proceeding to the more complex, we found that a watery 

 extract of the bark did not interfere in the least with the ger- 

 mination of seeds ; it did not hinder the growth of the yeast 

 fungus, and ordinary mould (Penicillium) grows freely in it. 

 It does not destroy full-grown bacteria nor infusoria ; nor does 

 a watery solution of the aqueous extract prevent the develop- 

 ment of bacteria, but a watery solution of the alcoholic extract 

 does so, a fact which seems to indicate the presence in the 

 alcoholic extract of some principle which is absent from the 

 aqueous extract. It has little or no action on invertebrate 

 animals such as snails. On fishes and frogs its action, though 

 much less than on w^arm-blooded animals, is nevertheless quite 

 distinct, its administration being followed by irregular mus- 



• American Journal of Fharmacy, April, 1849, p. 96. 



