NOTES  ON  POISONING  BY  CALABAR  BEANS,  ETC.  497 
NOTES  ON  THE  CASES  OF  POISONING  BY  CALABAR  BEANS 
IN  LIVERPOOL,  10th  and  11th  AUGUST,  1864. 
By  J.  Baker  Edwards,  PH.D.,  F.C.S., 
Lecturer  on  Chemistry  and  Medical  Jurisprudence  at  the  Royal  Infirmary 
School  of  Medicine,  Liverpool. 
1.  About  seventy  children  were  poisoned  by  eating  the 
beans,  of  whom  about  fifty  were  treated  at  the  Southern  Hos- 
pital in  this  town.  The  quantity  taken  by  each  child  was  from 
half  a  bean  to  six  beans.  The  nuts  were  cracked,  and  the 
kernal  eaten  without  the  spermoderm. 
2.  The  children  were  mostly  under  ten  years  of  age,  and  the 
poison  generally  produced  nausea  and  vomiting  in  half  an  hour. 
The  secondary  symptoms,  trembling,  dizziness,  and  loss  of 
power  in  the  limbs,  came  on  within  an  hour  of  administration. 
Within  three-quarters  of  an  hour  to  one  hour  after  eating,  the 
children  were  brought  to  the  hospital  and  at  once  treated  with 
emetics.  In  the  one  case  which  proved  fatal,  the  emetics  (sul- 
phate of  zinc  and  mustard  water)  failed  to  act,  and  the  child 
died  by  syncope  within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  his  admission. 
He  was  said  to  have  eaten  four  beans. 
3.  The  organs  were  found  healthy,  except  some  tuberculous 
disease  in  the  lungs.  The  blood  was  very  fluid.  The  heart 
contained  fluid  blood  and  clot  in  all  the  four  cavities,  indicating 
death  by  paralysis  of  the  muscles  of  the  heart.  Although  there 
was  no  reddening  of  the  coats  of  the  intestines,  there  had  been 
purging,  which  had  removed  all  faecal  matter,  leaving  only  in 
the  intestines  a  whitish  semi-fluid  emulsion  of  the  seed.  The 
bladder  was  perfectly  empty  and  contracted.  There  was  really 
nothing  in  the  post-mortem  appearances  to  indicate  the  cause  of 
death,  except  the  peculiar  contents  of  the  intestines,  and  had 
these  been  removed  by  purging,  there  would  have  been  nothing 
to  distinguish  between  death  by  this  poison  and  death  by  cholera. 
From  my  chemical  analysis  I  should  also  infer  that  although  in 
this  instance  circumstances  favored  the  detection  of  the  poison 
in  the  intestines  after  death,  yet  in  a  minimum  fatal  dose,  or  a 
prolonged  purging  before  death,  nothing  would  be  found  in  the 
body  to  identify  the  poison  or  to  account  for  death. 
I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Frazer,  of  Edinburgh,  who  has  investi- 
gated the  subject  with  great  ability,  for  a  valuable  communica- 
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