On the physiological actions of the ordeal bean of Calabar, and on its antagonism to tetanus and strychnia-poisoning / by Eben Watson, M.A.

  • Watson, Ebenezer.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the physiological actions of the ordeal bean of Calabar, and on its antagonism to tetanus and strychnia-poisoning / by Eben Watson, M.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    or forty years of age. Having lost her son, she accused a sister-in- law of having caused the young man's death, and demanded that she should be tried by the usual ordeal of the bean. In such a case when onQ individual thus challenges another, if the accuser be willing to partake of the ordeal along with the other, it is customary for the authorities to compel the accused to yield. It was so in this case. The bereft mother ate up several whole beans, quite deliberately, taking an occasional sip of water to facilitate degluti- tion. When next seen—little more than half an hour afterwards, perhaps—she was perfectly helpless. She was sitting on the ground supported by a female friend, who sat on a low stool behind her. She seemed to be perfectly flaccid. Leaning against her friend, her drooping head had to be supported, while she rested, hung by the axilla on her friend's thighs, over which her arms hung lifelessly as over the arms of a chair. Her back was much bent backwards, and her legs thrust out flat on the ground before her. At this time she was still able to speak, and obstinately refused everything in the shape of an emetic, observing tliat if she were such a one as the bean should destroy, it were best for all that she died. She complained of intense nausea; there was a constant flow of mucus; occasionally an attempt to vomit, when small quantities of mucus were thrown up, which friends anxiously but vainly searched in the hope of finding the larger particles of the bean, the appearance of which is, in their estimation, a hopeful sign of innocence and of life. In a few hours she was dead. The other unfortunate woman, whom, however, I did not see, also died, • Case 5.—This also was the case of a female, of about the same age as the preceding. Finding herself named along with certain others in connexion with a great feast of witches, she indignantly determined to purge her character, and demonstrate her innocence. Her own brother gave her a bean, or perhaps more than one, which no dissuasion on the part of others could prevent her eating. I reasoned with this woman for more than ten minutes, vainly endeavouring to get her to receive an emetic from me, and she must have taken the poison ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before I saw her. Indeed her friends were already becoming anxious about her, and even joined with me in urging her to use means to clear her stomach. This she stoutly refused to do, and became quite angry with us for proposing such a thing. All this while the poison seemed only to render her a little uneasy. By-and-by, as we still urged her to receive an emetic, she started up and went oft' in a fury, calling myself and all who sided with me all the hardest and worst names her vocabulary could supply. This was early in the forenoon. In the afternoon I saw her quite lively and com- fortable, and in excellent humour. She had vomited after I saw her in the forenoon, and had so escaped. Case 6.—This case happened at the same time as the last, and was that of a strong man of middle age. Having snatched up and swallowed a handful of bruised beans that had been prepared for