A preliminary notice of the akazga ordeal of West Africa, and of its active principle.

  • Fraser, Thomas R. (Thomas Richard), 1841-1920.
Date:
[1867], [©1867]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A preliminary notice of the akazga ordeal of West Africa, and of its active principle. 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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    A PEELIMINAET NOTICE OP THE AKAZGA ORDEAL OF WEST AFRICA, {Head, before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2,dth April, 1867.) 1. Employment as an Ordeal, and General Characters.—In several recently published works on African travel, accounts are given of the remarkable and violently poisonous properties of an ordeal called akazga. This would appear to have been first described by Du Chaillu, and submitted by him for examination to Professor John Torrey, of New York, in 1860. The quantity given to that gentleman was insufficient for a detailed investi- gation, but he reported that the plant appeared to belong to the Loganiacese, and that it was probably a species of strychnos.^ Soon after this, a description of its employment in judicial in- vestigations and many other particulars were published by that most entertaining of writers on African travel, Mr, Winwood Reade.2 Some specimens of the plant were presented to the London Pharmaceutical Society, in 1862, by Mr. Simmonds, and were chemically examined by Messrs. Attfield and C. H. Wood, who believed that they obtained indications of the presence of strychnia.^ In November, 1866, a paper was read 'before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, iDy MM. Pecholier and Saintpierre, in which the results are given of the examina- tion of the toxic properties of a Gaboon ordeal, which they term boundou, and which I have no doubt is the akazga ordeal. They conclude that this poison has a very similar action to ' ' Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Aft-ica,' by Paul B. Du Clunllu, p. 257. ' ' Savage Africa,' 1863. •■' ' Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions,' vol. iii, 18G1-G2, p. 30,0. AND OF ITS ACTIVE PRINCIPLE,