ON THE CALABAR BEAN. 
261 
usually lias seven long narrow leaves at a joint. The flowers grow on the 
tops of slender stalks and are of a yellow colour. The root is of a blackish 
colour outside and reddish within, thick and knotty. It flowers from Juno 
to the latter end of September. The part of the plant used in medicine is the 
root, and it is usually considered to possess the valuable properties of being 
very astringent, febrifuge, and not stimulant,—properties which certainly en¬ 
title it to a more extensive use in consequence of producing its astringent 
effects without causing excitement. It was much esteemed by most of the 
older writers on botany and materia medica, who pronounce it an excel¬ 
lent medicine, not only in cases of diarrhoea, but also dysentery and liscmo- 
ptysis ; and it is still used in some districts, with very good effect, by the 
people who make tea (infusion) of it. The tincture is used with success in 
diarrhoea mixtures. Its use however in modern pharmacy has been very 
limited, one preparation only having been ordered in the pharmacopoeias up 
to the time of the British Pharmacopoeia, from which it is altogether excluded. 
I am of opinion that in the next edition of the Pharm. Brit, it would be 
useful to retain the decoction as heretofore, and also to add two more prepa¬ 
rations of it, the “ infusion ” and the “ tincture,” prepared according to the 
following formula} 
Tinctura Tormentillce . 
P> Bad. Torment. Contus. . . . 5 'iv. 
Proof Spirit.Oij. 
Macerate for twenty-eight days and filter. 
Infusum Tormentillce. 
Bad. Torment. Contus. . . . 5yj. 
Aq. Bullient.Oj. 
Macerate for two hours in a vessel lightly covered, and strain. 
ON THE CALABAB BEAN. 
BY J. B. EDWARDS, PII.D., F.C.S., 
LECTURER OX TOXICOLOG-Y, ETC, AT THE LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OP MEHICIXE.' 
(Head at the Bath Meeting of the British Pharmaceutical Conference , Sept. 1864.) 
When the Calabar Bean is decorticated, it yields 30 per cent of spermoderm 
and 70 per cent, of white kernel. Exhausted by about three times its weight 
of hot rectified spirit, it yields 5 to 6 per cent, of alcoholic extract, which, 
upon evaporation, separates into two liquids, miscible with chloroform, but 
soluble only with ether. 
The alcoholic dry extract yields, with water, an emulsion of a white cha¬ 
racter, which becomes pink by exposure to air and light. In the proportion 
of 5 grains of extract to 1 fluid drachm of water, equal to 120 grains of ker¬ 
nel, 1 minim represents 2 grains of kernel. This quantity, applied to the 
pupil, produces a contraction which is maintained for live days. 
The tincture is prepared by percolation, thus :— 
Kernel, in powder . . . ^j. 
Spirit of Wine . . . . %j. 
Macerate 48 hours, then percolate with 1 ounce of spirit, or sufficient to 
produce 2 ounces of tincture. The dose is from 5 to 15 minims, 5 minims 
being equal in activity to 3 grains of the kernel. That which I have prepared 
is of a much lighter colour than that described by Dr. Frazer. It is said to 
be valuable in erysipelas, delirium tremens, fibricula, acute bronchitis, and 
rheumatic fever. 
