148 
had eaten beans, when he pointed to a beast that had died the day before, and beans had been taken from 
its stomach. In reply to my question lie said he expected some of the cattle in the yard to recover. They 
appeared much purged, discharging thin watery f cecal matter. Cattle seem to be attracted by the bright 
green appearance of the beans as they lie upon the ground. Many cattle and horses on the Richmond 
have been lost from bean-poisoning.-lost a valuable entire horse and cattle in this way, and many 
others have similar experience. It appears to affect horses in a different way from cattle.- 
informed me that while removing horses from a paddock in which the bean tree was growing two of 
them died without previously showing any symptoms of poisoning. 
Tlie seeds are also rapidly fatal to pigs in some cases, probably when 
devoured on an empty stomach. Opossums are stated to be fond of them. 
Knowledge was in this state when Mr. J. C. Brunnich, chemist of the 
Queensland Department of Agriculture, took the matter up. Following is his 
report, taken from the Queensland Agric. Journ., Oct., 1901, p. 422 : — 
For the analysis, I prepared the beans by shredding them roughly into thin slices, and determining 
the moisture in a fresh sample of these slices. The bulk of the sliced seeds was left exposed to the air to 
dry spontaneously. This air-dried sample was ground into a fairly fine flour (all passing through a sieve 
with thirty meshes to the inch), and this prepared flour was used for the exhaustive analysis, calculating 
the composition of the fresh seeds from the analysis of the air-dried flour. 
The tabulated result of this analysis is as follows :— 
Air-dried Flour. 
Fresh Bean. 
per cent. 
per cent. 
Water 
10-68 
55-76 
Fat 
1-06 
0-52 
Chlorophyll 
0-39 
0-17 
Albuminoids, soluble in water ... 
5-41 
2-68 
,, „ „ coagulated when boiling 
1-18 
0-59 
„ insoluble, Leguinin 
4-44 
2-20 
Glucoside, Saponin 
14-58 
7-23 
Starch 
37-54 
18-59 
Mucilaginous substances... 
3-18 
1 -57 
Dextrin ... 
4-98 
2-47 
Glucose ... 
0-64 
0-32 
Woody fibre 
7-99 
3-96 
Crude ash... 
2-21 
1-09 
Undetermined extra matter, colouring matter, organic acids, 
pectin, &c., by difference ... 
5-72 
2-33 
Analysis of the Crude Ash. 
Soluble in water ... 
per cent. 
73 05 
Insoluble in water, soluble in HC1 
19-70 
Unburnt carbon ... 
7-25 
Phosphoric acid ... 
2617 
Chlorine ... 
2-48 
Potash 
29-81 
Soda 
3-44 
Lime 
6-16 
Magnesia ... 
6-88 
Unburnt carbon ... 
7-25 
Carbonic acid by difference 
17-81 
