J-Iay 11, 1372.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
007 
was particularly directed to tlxe Calabar bean. It is 
used in that country, together with several other toxic 
•agents, such as the Icaza m'boundu, the Inee, the rile hi use, 
etc., by the tribes still plunged in barbarism and fe- 
tichisnx, for the compounding of their ordeal drinks. 
From a memoir giving the result of his inquiries we are 
enabled to glean the following particulars:— 
The first specimens of this drug were sent to Europe 
by English missionaries from Old Calabar, where the 
natives called it “ esere.” About ten years afterwards its 
botanical position was assigned by Professor Balfour, and 
at nearly the same time Dr. Fraser, of Edinburgh, while 
studying its physiological properties, discovered the re¬ 
markable property it possesses of contracting the pupil 
of the eye. In 1866 it was found in the French posses¬ 
sions in the Gaboon, not far from the banks of the rivers 
Como and Rhamboc. It is also found in abundance on 
the banks of the Ogo-wai; and as the physostigma prefers 
marshy and humid soils, it is probable that it occurs on 
the borders of all the rivers flowing into the Atlantic, 
from Old Calabar on the north to Cape Lopez on the south. 
The Calabar bean is the seed of the Physostigma venc- 
msum (Balf.), which has been placed by Balfour in the 
Leguminoscn, sub-tribe Euphaseotce, the only tribe of the 
leguminosa that contains poisonous plants. 
It is a perennial woody climber, attaining sometimes 
a height of from forty to fifty feet. It twines from 
right to left round the neighbouring trees, and in spite 
of any obstacles that may temporarily prevent its pro¬ 
gress in this direction, it will after a time resume its 
•course. The leaves are alternate, trifoliate, the middle 
leaflet ovate, very acute at the tip, regular at the base, 
stipulate, the lateral leaflets unsymmetrical. There are 
also two short stipules at the base of the general petiole. 
The flowers are disposed in clusters, and rose-coloured, 
with magnificent purple veins. The calyx is unequally 
rfive-toothed; the corolla papilionaceous with vexillary 
•aestivation; stamens ten, perigynous and disposed in two 
ifascicles, one consisting of nine stamens, and the other 
*>f one vexillary stamen; anthers bilobed, introrse, and 
dehiscing by two longitudinal slits. The ovary is 
'stipitate and surrounded by a very long style, bearing a 
globular stigma, the surface of which is slightly hairy 
and covered with conical papillae. Immediately below 
the stigma, on the convex part of the style, is a promi¬ 
nence having the shape of a falcate crest, which Pro¬ 
fessor Balfour appears to have looked upon as empty and 
vesicular, and therefore named the genus “ Physostigma.” 
'The author, however, asserts that this prominence is 
full, and cannot be said in any way to justify the 
designation. The fruit is a pod inches to 6 inches 
long, attenuated at both ends, a little compressed at 
the sides, bluish in colour; the valves are thickish, 
.-striated and rugose on their external surface, and smooth 
on their internal face, which presents in the intervals 
between the seeds a sort of whitish cellular tissue. 
Each pod contains two or three seeds, most commonly 
.two. The seeds, which are the active part of the 
plant, for neither the leaves nor the stems are poisonous, 
.are oblong, convex, and slightly reniform, a cha¬ 
racter which is more marked in the beans proceeding 
from Ogo-wai than in those collected in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the Como and Rhamboc. They are from 
•one to one and a quarter inches long, and about two 
thirds of an inch broad. The hilum, which surrounds 
nearly half the circumference of the bean, has the 
•appearance of a long cicatrice, bounded by a slightly 
projecting line; is reddish and divided into two equal 
parts by a furrow that runs its entire length. The 
external tegument is testaceous, rather rough, and of a 
•chocolate brown colour. In the interior is found a large 
.fleshy embryo, with conical radicle accumbent to the 
cotyledons, which are ellipsoidal, hard, white, piano, 
convex, perfectly joined to each other at first, afterwards 
retracting, and leaving between them an empty space 
that constitutes a kind of central cavity. 
Chemical analysis and microscopical examination have 
shown that the nucleus is formed of loose cellular tissue, 
containing large granules of amylaceous matter. These 
starch grains arc oval or reniform, or sometimes assume 
the form of parallelograms with rounded angles; the 
margin is sometimes toothed. The spermoderm contains 
several colouring matters, which have recently been 
studied by M. Grassi, who thinks they might be utilized 
in the dyeing ot silk. The active principle of the bean 
is the alkaloid discovered in 1861 by Jobert and Hesse, 
which has been variously designated physostigmine, 
calabarine, and eserine, from the name esere given to the 
plant by the Cameroons. It is amorphous, brownish- 
yellow, nearly insoluble in cold water, rather soluble in 
ammonia, carbonate of soda, ether, benzine, and alcohol. 
Its solutions in acids are generally deep red, but some¬ 
times intensely blue. 
The plant is also called by the Gaboonese it Chogo, and 
by the Fans, d'Itounda. By the last-mentioned people 
the bruised seeds are made up into an ointment with 
palm oil, or some other excipient, and used to rid their 
bodies from the parasites with which they are covered. 
TINCTURA 0PII. 
BY ALLEN SHRYOCK. 
Allowing the opium to be wholly exhausted of its 
active principles, one grain would be represented by 
12 T 8 y minims of the tincture, according to the U. S. for¬ 
mula ; but a minute quantity of morphia has been de¬ 
tected in the residuary matter, so that the tincture is 
rather weaker than the proportion of opium employed 
should indicate. To determine this difference, though 
slight, would be of interest. 
Powdered opium was analysed, and found to yield 
l^rVo P er cent, of morphia, giving 3171 grains in 50 
troy ounces; this quantity being converted into 40 pints 
of tinctura opii, U. S. P., the dregs of the same wei’e 
analysed, and foxmd to contain 13 grains of morphia, 
upon which data we may readily calculate the loss as 
represented by morphia. Assuming the amount of 
morphia contained in the powdered opium to be repre¬ 
sented nomiixally by 100 per cent., the amount of mor¬ 
phia retained in the dregs (13 grs.) will be represented 
by ’40996, or approximately § of one per cent. There¬ 
fore 12 T 8 n minims of tincture of opium in strength equals 
one grain of powdered opium less § per cent., or 
gr., and one grain of powdered opium in morphia 
strength equals 12 T 8 0 5 n minims. 
With this slight difference, however, 12 x ®j minims of 
the tincture may even l-epresent more than one grain of 
powdered opium in therapeutic action, though lacking 
slightly in strength, from the fact of its being in a more 
diffusible state. 
T fi 0 6 0 of the opium xised was taken up by the men- 
strum, and each fluid ounce of the tincture contained 
4’93 grains of morphia. 
The residues left in making galenical preparations 
are always more or less charged with traces of the active 
principles. The proper menstrua and mode of preparing 
them presents a wide and interesting ficld for investiga¬ 
tion.— Amcr. Journ. Pharm. 
TEST FOR ARSENIC IN SULPHURIC ACID. 
The presence of arsenic in concentrated sulphuric 
acid may be detected by cautiously adding drop by drop 
from 2 to 3 c.c. to a solution of a little stannous 
chloride in from 4 to 6 c. c. of hydrochloric acid of sp. 
gr. 1T2, the liquid being gently agitated after each 
addition. If arsenic be pi’esent a yellow colouration 
chan "in 0, to brown is produced; it not, the solution 
remains” clear. This test is said to answer if the 
500 000th part of arsenious acid be present.— Dingl. 
Polgt. Journ . 
