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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    very weak acetic acid, and injected into the cellular tissue of a rabbit weighing three and a quartei* pounds. A spontaneous and slight spasm, with increase of sensibility, occurred in four minutes; a long-continued tetanic convulsion, commencing with a violent spring, followed in eight minutes, and this was immediately succeeded by a second; on the termination of which, a succession of muscular twitches occurred, and con- tinued for a few seconds after the respirations had ceased. The rabbit was dead in eight minutes and forty seconds after the administration of the poison. To a rabbit weighing three pounds, one twelfth of a grain of akazgia was administered in exactly the same way as in the last experiment. No eflPect was produced until eight minutes, when its back became slightly stiff, and this was soon followed by a spontaneous spasm._ The rabbit fell in a tetanic convulsion in fifteen minutes, and the effort which it made to raise itself when this had ceased induced another convulsion. These continued to succeed each other until twenty-two minutes, when a very violent attack of tetanus occurred, at the end of which the rabbit lay for many seconds without any respiratory movement, and with its muscles faintly quivering, exactly as they do at the termination of a fatal administration. Instead of dying, how- ever, a sudden gasp occurred, and was followed by respiratory movements, which quickly became normal. When the rabbit attempted to rise, the posterior half of its body was found to be partially paralysed, and it could barely elevate its head and shoulders with its yielding forelegs. There were, however, no further spontaneous spasms, though slight convulsive move- ments could be readily excited by faint touches ; and from this condition, also, it completely recovered in an hour and forty minutes. The paralysed state gradually disappeared, and in about two hours after the exhibition of the poison the rabbit was jumping about in an apparently normal condition. These experiments are sufficient to show that the active prin- ciple of akazga has exactly the same action as the extract, and a proportional activity to it. It is difficult to make an exact comparison between the effects of akazgia and those of strychnia, as I have not suc- ceeded in finding any investigation in which the minimum fatal dose of the latter substance was attempted to be determined. But, whether peculiar to akazga or not, it is interesting that a certain quantity of an ordeal-poison should be able to produce a condition which appears to approach as closely as possible to death, and that an extremely slight increase of the dose capable of doing this should very quickly caxxse violent symptoms and a rapidly fatal termination. The medicine-man is thus enabled,