CHURCHILL— SAMOAN KAVA CUSTOM 



of the present of the root. In fact, the taste of the infusion is slight; 

 such woody taste as is recognized in the first sip is quite obliterated by 

 the more distinctive effect of a numbing of the papillae at the tip of 

 the tongue and a lesser degree of insensibility in the mucosa of the 

 mouth cavity as far back as the fauces, leaving the impression such 

 as might be derived from a dusting with magnesia. 



We must go back to our botany for the establishment of the place 

 of kava. The plant was discovered by Forster and described as Piper 

 methysticum, thus at the beginning of its knowledge suggesting its 

 intoxicating quality and making it more difficult to correct that error. 

 Miquel in a revision of the Piperacece erected upon Forster's type 

 specimen a new genus Macropiper, but that has passed into the 

 synonymy and the genus Piper is now accepted. This is a stout shrub 

 freely stalking at the ground, rises to the height of six to ten feet, and 

 when conditions are favorable shadows an area quite equal to its 

 height. The stalks frequently attain a diameter of two inches and 

 are heavily ringed at the nodes. The leaf is of a green so distinctive 

 that in the Samoan the common designation of green color is lanu- 

 lau'ava, "kava leaf hue". The plant occurs frequently in the jungle, 

 but it attains its largest growth in rocky soil where it has free sun- 

 light and it is most commonly planted between the houses in the 

 hamlets. The part employed is the root stock, the older it is the 

 better it is liked, and from plants which have been allowed to grow 

 in proper conditions the root stock may attain a diameter of three to 

 five inches along the upper two feet of its extent. Dried kava broken 

 into convenient fragments is commonly on sale at the shops in Apia 

 and fetches a price of a shilling a pound. 



In a mistaken practice of medicine, and this was unavoidable 

 before the discovery of the Neisserian infection, kava was suggested 

 as early as 1857 as a succedaneum for the less tolerable resins of 

 copaiba and cubebs. It never became official, but it still retains a 

 place in pharmacology and it is due to that fact that we have the 

 analysis of the root. In the United States Dispensatory kava is men- 

 tioned in a footnote in the edition of 1883, continued in the same 

 position in 1889, in 1894 it was advanced to a capital position among 

 the remedies "not official" and so remains. Its effect is described as 

 the production of a local anesthesia due to paralysis of the sensory 

 nerve filaments, it stimulates the heart and diminishes the number of 

 pulsations by stimulating the inhibitory nerve centers, it depresses and 

 finally paralyzes respiration. The dried root contains 23 per cent of 

 cellulose and 49 per cent of starch. The British Pharmaceutical Codex 

 (1907) notes the composition as an alpha-kava resin, a beta-kava resin, 



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