116 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



principles of many indigenous plants, which are at present most 

 imperfectly known, and in the trust that measures may be adopted 

 for testing therapeutically the value of these active principles. 



The nature of some of the difficulties attendant upon such cursory 

 investigations as have been made may be gleaned from the following 

 description of what usually occurs. For some ailment, real or 

 imaginary, a person is treated by a native medicine-man, is possibly 

 over-dosed and dies. The stomach, or its contents, is forwarded for 

 analysis, not always accompanied by some portion of the plant held 

 responsible for the fatality. Generally, however, it is accompanied 

 by a fragment of some plant, it may be an inch or two of root or- 

 a few leaves. It is most unusual to receive any flowers or fruit, 

 so that in many cases the plant can hardly, if at all, be identified. 

 As often as not it is a matter of uncertainty whether the accom- 

 panying plant is really of the same species or order as that taken 

 by the deceased, and there is no clue whatever on the subject. The 

 first step in the actual investigation is usually that of ascertaining 

 whether any alkaloid or glucoside is extractible from the plant, and 

 if so whether it yields any characteristic tests whereby it may be 

 identified on a future occasion. Often the small quantity of plant 

 material received is far too minute to extract anything satisfactory 

 from ; in such cases request is made for a larger quantity, provided 

 the plant can be identified. Sometimes this cannot be done, and 

 so one channel of investigation is closed. On other occasions a 

 larger supply is received in response to the request ; one glance 

 may then be sufficient to reveal the fact that it is obviously from 

 a different plant ; or it may be accompanied by a statement to the 

 effect that it is wholly uncertain whether it is from the same plant 

 as the original sample which, in turn, may not be identical with 

 that taken by the deceased. Now and then it has happened that 

 the links of the chain are complete, and the plant extract, upon 

 application of certain tests, has responded in some characteristic 

 measure ; the next step is to identify the contents of the stomach, 

 and this is done by application of the same tests to which the plant 

 responded. Sometimes the results are negative, sometimes positive ; 

 but negative results do not imply that the plant decoction was not 

 partaken of, nor do positive results prove that it caused death. 

 Physiological experiments have now to be performed, and mice, 

 rats, guinea-pigs, rabbits, and dogs are usually experimented upon. 

 All these experiments have to be carried out and completed within 

 a specified time, for the point to be decided is the purely legal one, 

 whether the deceased died from the effects of a poison administered 

 by the accused. 



