PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
456 
transmitting sufficient sulphuretted hydrogen, to remove the excess of lead, 
after the gradual evaporation of the liquid, numerous long needle-like crystals, 
became deposited in the glass. These, on comparison with a lai’ge sample of 
this alkaloid in Kingston, proved to he identical. As, however, it was deemed 
desirable to have a more elaborate chemical examination of the ultimate consti¬ 
tuents of these seeds, and also to determine fully the character of the theine 
previously procured, a quantity of the broken dried nuts, were placed in the 
hands of a practical chemist, Dr. Attfield, at the same time intimating to him, 
that I had already obtained theine as one of the chief elements ; and the result 
of his labours hitherto, has been to establish the validity of my discovery, and 
the correctness of the estimate I had formed respecting the true nature of this 
alkaloid. 
In the preceding introductory statements, I have endeavoured, so far as con¬ 
sists with the importance of the subject, to condense within restricted limits, 
various characteristic details of interest, such as might tend to elucidate the 
origin of that constitutional craving, which induced the negro tribes to select 
this in preference to other vegetable products for dietetic purposes. A concise 
historical summary of their aboriginal appliances is at the same time supplied, 
in allusion to those primitive usages existing long anterior to the visits of the 
“ children of God ”* to the shores of Western Africa. 
The discovery of Theine as a constituent of the seeds, affords a ready physio¬ 
logical solution of several of those otherwise obscure effects, manifested by their 
therapeutic influence on the human constitution. 
One remarkable feature worthy of mention, is the marked avidity displayed in 
modern days, by the negro inhabitants of Sierra Leone, and Portuguese colonies, 
for the nuts in preference to the beverages of tea and coffee, although each con¬ 
tains the same elementary alkaloid. I have occasionally observed that even the 
coffee tree, more or less under culture in their farms or gardens, is neglected, and 
on the whole they are indifferent to the stimulant properties of its fruit, so long as 
the Kola-nuts are attainable; nay, they indulge in the luxury of chewing them, 
even when gathering the ripe purple-coloured berries of the former, for sale, or 
domestic use. Nevertheless, the semi-civilized negro enjoys his cup of tea and 
coffee, with the same gout as a European. 
Wherever the slave trade prevailed, the Cola acuminata appears sooner or 
later, to have been introduced as a necessary sequence, to the importation of 
slaves to their new homes; and in countries, where they became located in large 
numbers, it was studiously imported, and cultivated for their advantage and 
benefit. Hence the 'introduction of the tree into the Mauritius, several of the 
West Indian Islands, Brazil, Mexico, and other extensive regions on the continent 
of America. 
In Jamaica, the young plants were brought over and naturalized from the 
Gold Coast between the early epochs of 1630-40, by a Guinea trader, under the 
local appellation of Biche , or Bissai , a name still retained throughout the island. 
Its importation has been ascribed to the urgent request of an agent of large 
sugar estates, exclusively worked by the Coromantyn, or Gold Coast negroes. 
Similar to the grains of Paradise (Amomum Malegueta , Pose.), it was specially 
intended to act, either as a medicinal prophylactic agent, or as an ordinary 
article of food, to avert, as far as practicable, those attacks of constitutional de¬ 
spondency, to which this class of negroes were peculiarly liable. By thus allowing 
them the means of participating in those favourite condiments in general use 
in Africa, that predisposition to epidemic outbreaks of suicidal mania, (an 
inevitable propensity for which ran like infection through several contiguous 
*' i.e. Europeans,—a term hv which they were designated when first seen by the negroes, 
and applied even at the present day in some of the regions of tropical West Africa. 
