On the characters, actions, and therapeutic uses of the ordeal bean of Calabar, (Physostigma venenosum, Balfour) : a graduation thesis, for which a gold medal was awarded by the Edinburgh University, August 1862 / by Thomas R. Fraser.

  • Fraser, Sir Thomas Richard, 1841-1920.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the characters, actions, and therapeutic uses of the ordeal bean of Calabar, (Physostigma venenosum, Balfour) : a graduation thesis, for which a gold medal was awarded by the Edinburgh University, August 1862 / by Thomas R. Fraser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE CHAEACTERS, ACTIONS, AND THERAPEUTIC USES OF THE OEDEAL BEAN OF CALABAK. Section I.—History, Employment as an Ordeal, Botanical Characters, etc. Society, in sacrificing mucli to the hazardous cause of geographical exploration and discovery, has frequently been rewarded by the acquisition of materials which have proved of great service to man in a civilized state. There can be little doubt, that a farther careful study of the properties of many substances so discovered, would increase oui- list of economic materials, and especially add to the catalogue of the therapeutist many agents possessing medicinal virtues. Within a comparatively recent period a considerable amount of attention has been directed to the seed of a leguminous plant of West Africa,—the Ordeal Bean of Calabar. First scientifically noticed by Dr Daniell about the year 1840, and alluded to in a paper read by him before the Etlmological Society in 1846,^ it has since attracted a large amount of attention from Europeans residing in the district in wliich it occurs. This bean is used principally as a state poison, as a supposed means of discovering crime and a certain method of punishing it,—the suspicion of guilt being held to be verified if it prove the cause of death. The mode of trial by ordeal, in one or other of its forms, is of extremely ancient origin. It may be stated generally to have existed m every race and country during its stage of infantile barbarity. The ancient annals of Greece^ show its existence. In 1 Kdinburgh New riiilosophical Journal, vol. xl., 1846, pp. 319, 320, 321, ^ Antigone of Sophocles, v. 270. A