On the use of certain plants as Alexipharmics 
or Snake-bite Antidotes. 
BY 
DANIEL MORRIS, M.A., F.L.S. 
Assistant Director , Royal Gardens , Kew. 
I N the department of Economic Botany considerable activity 
is displayed in investigations whereby the medicinal 
properties of plants may be more fully utilized. Numerous 
plants that once were shunned on account of their poisonous 
properties have of recent years been made subservient to 
the wants of man. A few instances of these may well be 
cited. The Umbsuli, a species of Strophanthus that yielded 
the arrow-poison of South Africa, is found of incalculable 
benefit in cardiac diseases. The celebrated Ordeal Bean of 
Old Calabar, Physostigma venenosum , Balf., a plant so deadly 
as to be ordered to be destroyed by the Government, has 
yielded under careful research a powerful sedative of the 
spinal cord. Another African ordeal poison was yielded by 
Erythrophloeum guineense , Don., the Sassy of the Gambia, 
and the Casa or Casca of the Congo. The bark yielded 
by infusion a c red water,’ and the ordeal was administered 
in this form. In medicine the drug is useful in the treatment 
of cardiac dropsy and passive hemorrhage. One of the 
most deadly plants in the West Indies, formerly used 
as a ‘safe’ poison by Obeah men, and probably still 
largely used in Hayti, is Urechites sub-erecta , Muell. Ang. 
Recently this plant has been recommended in the treat- 
ment of yellow fever. The Jamaica Dogwood, Piscidia 
Erythrina, L., chiefly used as a narcotic and as a fish poison, 
[ Annals of Botany, Vol. I. No. II. November 1887. ] 
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