950 DR THOMAS R. FRASER ON STROPHANTHUS HISPIDUS. 



previous communications, an account of the observations I have made on the general 

 natural history, the chemistry, and the pharmacology (or physiological action) of Strophan- 

 tus. Before doing so, it may be desirable to state what knowledge existed with regard 

 to these departments of its study and consideration previously to the publication of my 

 papers of 1870 and 1872; to reproduce some of the leading statements contained in these 

 papers ; and to indicate the extent to which the knowledge regarding Strophanthus was 

 increased during the period of fifteen years which elapsed between the publication of my 

 paper of 1870 and of my subsequent paper read before the British Medical Association 

 in 1885. 



Previously to the publication of my preliminary paper of 1870, the knowledge regard- 

 ing Strophanthus consisted of several botanical descriptions of the plant ; of notices by 

 travellers of its use by African tribes, who had discovered its poisonous action, and had 

 employed it as an arrow-poison in the chase, and apparently also in warfare ; and of a few 

 brief references to some points relating to its physiological action. 



Interest was first attracted to the physiological action of this substance by the intro- 

 duction into Europe of a few specimens of fruits and seeds reputed to be the source of 

 a remarkable arrow-poison used in several parts of Africa, and termed in some districts 

 the Kombe and in others the Inee poison. The physiologists who first examined the 

 properties of this poison seem to have been Sharpey, and Hilton Fagge and Stevenson 

 of London, and Pelikan of St Petersburg. 



Sharpey's experiments were made in 1862-63, but they were not published, as before 

 his investigation had been completed my preliminary notice of 1870, briefly descriptive 

 of the general results I had then obtained, was communicated to this Society, and, much 

 to my regret, led Sharpey to refrain from publishing his observations, as they entirely 

 agreed with those contained in my paper. From the notes of his experiments, which he 

 afterwards very kindly sent to me, it is apparent that Sharpey had determined that the 

 action of Strophanthus was characteristically that of a cardiac poison. 



On the 18th of May 1865, Hilton Fagge and Stevenson stated, in a note appended 

 to a paper communicated to the Royal Society of London, on the " Application of Physio- 

 logical Tests for Certain Organic Poisons,"* that the Manganja arrow-poison, obtained 

 during the Zambesi Expedition by Sir John (then Dr) Kirk, acts as a " cardiac poison." 

 By this expression they imply an action on the frog's heart of the same kind as that 

 produced by digitalin, Antiaris toxicaria, Helleborus viridis and niger, Scilla, and 

 certain other poisons ; and, especially, that the heart is stopped with the ventricle " rigidly 

 contracted and perfectly pale." 



In the same year, on the 5th of June, PELiKAN.t in a note communicated to the 

 Academy of Sciences of Paris, pointed out that an extract obtained from the seeds which 

 yield the In^e or Onage arrow-poison acts on the frog's heart in the same way as digitalis 



* Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xiv., 1865, p. 274. 



t " Sur un nouveau poison du cceur provenantde l'lnde ou Onage, et employe au Gabon (Afrique Occidentale) comme 

 poison des Heches" (Comptes Bendus de VAcaddmie des Sciences, tome lx., 1865, p. 1209). 



