Calabar bean

noun

1. the violently poisonous seed of an African climbing plant, Physostigma venenosum, of the legume family, the active principle of which is physostigmine.

Calabar bean

/ ˈkæləˌbɑː, ˌkæləˈbɑː /

noun

1. the dark brown very poisonous seed of a leguminous woody climbing plant, Physostigma venenosum of tropical Africa, used as a source of the drug physostigmine

Word History and Origins

Origin of Calabar bean¹

1875–80; named after Calabar, Nigeria

Example Sentences

First, there were small amounts of the Calabar bean - sometimes known as the Doomsday or ordeal plant, traditionally used in witchcraft ceremonies in West Africa.

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There was even such a thing as trial by bean: the accused ate the poisonous Calabar bean, and if he threw it up and thus survived, he was innocent.

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The final version of today’s Google Doodle for the U.S. shows the chemical structure of cortisone coming from an intermediate in soybean together with physostigmine from the West African Calabar bean.

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To these may be added the potent nerve-sedatives and anti-spasmodics—chloroform, chloral hydrate, ether, bromides of potassium, sodium, and ammonium, curare, Calabar bean, and the sialogogue diaphoretic pilocarpine.

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A mixture of one ounce of tincture of Calabar bean with one and a half ounces of fluid extract of ergot was administered in doses of half a teaspoonful every two hours, and with better results than had followed other remedies.

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