[Illustration]
The manioca which is cultivated, a good deal in South-America, for its
nutritious root, is a bush with a round and ramose stem, often growing
to the size of three feet high. Its leaves, which are of a sea-green
color, and supported by long petioles, are alternate, palmate, with
five to seven lanciolate, smooth and entire lobes. The flowers, which
are monoïchous, form branching panicles either terminal or axillary;
their perianth is calicoïd, campanulate, with five deep divisions of
a light-yellow color, changing to a brown at the extremity of the
divisions. Flowers male, ten stamens, with alternately long and short
filaments inserted in a fleshy disk, which, in the female flowers,
surrounds the base of a sub-globular ovary, with three uni-ovulate
chambers; no style, but three stygmata presenting six or seven thick,
compressed lobes that constitute a thick and sinuous mass. The roots,
which are tuberculous and very big, contain an abundance of milky juice
which is very poisonous when fresh, and which is extracted first by
pressure and afterwards by the desiccation of the feculent portion that
constitutes the chief nutriment of the Brazilian farmer. It is this juice
that we employ in medicine.
On the second of July, 1845, a large quantity of this dangerous liquid
was expressed before the institute, and an ounce of it was taken by Dr.
Jo. Vincente Martins, and several pupils among whom Messrs. Antonio de
Souza, Dias and Chedifer, seemed to be the most eager. The symptoms were
so violent that most of the provers were obliged to antidote them. We
trust that the devotedness of the Brazilian physicians will excite a
corresponding enthusiasm among their brethren in other parts.
_First day._—1. Eructations, at half past 6 in the morning. Slight
feeling of dryness in the œsophagus. Slight weight in the stomach. Drowsy
in the day-time. 5. Thirst. Falls asleep late. Stool easier than common.
Pain at the velum palati. Pain in the orbits. 10. Pain in the chest.
Weakness of the knees in going up-stairs. Sad. Feeble. Dizzy. 15. Acute
pain in the left arm, at night.
_Second day._—Vague pain in the abdomen, while urinating, at 6 in
the morning. Copious light-colored, watery, fetid stools. Renewed
ineffectual urging to stool, at 8. Appetite when commencing breakfast,
it suddenly ceases after taking a little milk. 20. Sense of swelling in
the left tonsil. Profuse sweat during sleep, ceasing on waking. Watery,
greenish, fetid stools. Slight dull pains in the stomach and bowels, with
rumbling. Sudden pain, with lancination in the urethra, above the fossa
navicularis, for two minutes. 25. Tenesmus and pressure in the sphincter
ani, with pricking, at 3 in the afternoon. Weight in the head, especially
high up in the forehead, at 4 in the afternoon. Drowsy, at 4 in the
afternoon. Distressing dreams, he wants to save a child from asphyxia,
but the parents refuse to have it treated. Dizzy. 30. Wakes in bad humor.
Trembling of the knees and limbs, with violent emotion when hearing other
persons talk about the malady which he fears he is afflicted with. Pain
in the side of the chest and in the shoulders, worse during motion.
_Third day._—Uncertain and transitory, but very acute pains in the
stomach. Fetid sweat in the axillæ and about the scrotum. 35. Doughy
mouth, with bad breath. Noise in the ears like that of rushing steam.
Slight heat in the urethra. Swelling of the ankles, rather less at
night. Pain in the back. 40. Pain at the left elbow. Moral and physical
prostration.
_Fourth day._—Heaviness in the stomach, all night, eased by placing the
hands upon the part. Optical illusions. Bitter mouth. 45. Pain in the
forehead and the nasal fossæ.
_Fifth day._—Pain at the inside of the thigh. Dreams about a fire with
little flames like those which were observed during the examination at
the institute of Rio Janeiro from the tenth attenuation of the crotalus
cascavella, by means of the solar microscope.
_Sixth day._—Drowsy. Diarrhœa in the morning. 50. Pain at the loins. Icy
coldness of the knees.
_Seventh day._—Icy coldness under the shoulder-blades, in bed, even when
well covered. Cold feet and hands.
_Eighth day._—Rheumatic pain in the right thigh. 55. Icy coldness in the
arm, even to the marrow. The whole head, especially the nape of the neck,
is cold.