SEMEN PHYSOSTIGMATIS. 191 



SEMEN PHYSOSTIGMATIS. 



Faha Calabar ka, Faha Physostigmatis ; Calabar Bean, Ordeal Bean 

 of Old Calabar, Esere Nut, Chop-nut; F. Feve de Calabar; G. 

 Calabarbohne. 



Botanical Origin — Physostigma venenosiim Balfour, a perennial 

 plant resembling the coiumon Scarlet Runner (Phaseohis multijlorus 

 Lam.) of our gardens, but having a woody stem often an inch or 

 two thick, climbing to a height of 50 feet or more. It grows near 

 the mouths of the Niger and the Old Calabar River in the Gulf of 

 Guinea. 



The imported seeds germinate freely, but the plant, though it 

 thrives vigorously in a hothouse, has not yet, we believe, flowered in 

 Europe. It has already been introduced into India and Brazil. In 

 the latter country Dr. Peckolt, late of Cantagallo, has raised plants 

 which have blossomed abundantly, producing racemes of about 30 

 flowers each, pendent from the axils of the temate leaves. 



The flower, which is fully an inch across and of a purplish colour, 

 has the form of Phaseoliis, but is distinguished from that genus by 

 two special characters, namely that it has the style developed beyond 

 the stigma backwards as a broad, flat, hooked appendage,^ and the seeds 

 half suiTOunded by a deeply grooved hilum. 



History — The pagan tribes of Tropical Western Africa compel per- 

 sons accused of witchcraft to undergo the ordeal of swallowing some 

 vegetable poison. One of the substances employed in this horrid 

 custom is the seed under notice, which is administered in substance or 

 in the form of emulsion, or even as a clyster. It was first made known 

 in England by Dr. W. F. Daniell about the year 1840, and subsequently 

 alluded to in a paper read by him before the Ethnological Society in 

 1846."^ The highly poisonous effects of the bean were observed in 

 1855 by Christison^ in his own person, and in 1858 by Sharpey, who 

 administered it to frogs. 



Before the seed became an object of commerce, it was regarded by 

 the natives with some mystery and was reluctantly parted with to 

 Europeans. It was moreover customary in Old Calabar to destroy the 

 plant whenever found, a few only being reserved to supply seeds for 

 judicial purposes, and of these seeds the store was kept in the custody 

 of the native chief. In 1859, the Rev. W. C. Thomson, a missionary 

 on the West Coast of Africa, forwarded the plant to Professor Balfour 

 of Edinburgh, who figured and described it as a type of a new 

 genus.* 



Fraser of Edinburgh (about 1863 or earlier) discovered the specific 

 power of the seed in contracting the pupil, when the alcoholic extract is 

 applied to the eye. These myotic effects, counteracting those of atropine 



^ The name of the genus, from <pCaa, a ^ Edinb. Journ. of Medical Science, xx. 



bladder, was formed under the notion that (1855) 193; Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 470. 

 this appendage is holloic, which is not the * Trans. Bo;/. Soc. of Edinb. xxii. (1861) 



fact.— Mucunacylindrosperma Wei witsch, 305. t. 16-17; see also Baillon, Hist, des 



from Angola, is probably the same plant. Plante.«, ii. 206. figg. 153-155, and Beutley 



•See Holmes, Pharm. J. ix. (1879) 913. and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 6 (1876). 



» Edinb. Xerr Phil. J. xl. (1846) 313. 



