Perhaps Less Revolting. Crinum asiaticum, Asian Poison Bulb, KLCC Park, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Amazing Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702), the Blind Pliny of Ambon - whom I've often mentioned in these pages - was a great botanist of the East Indies. More than that, he was also a general naturalist and anthropologist, and he writes most colorfully and engagingly.
In Book VI of his great Herbarium amboinense he waxes eloquent in many pages on our Crinum asiaticum, known to him as Radix toxicaria especially in connection with the Upas Tree, Antiaris toxicaria, for him Arbor toxicaria.
Rumphius in Book II devotes lots of space to the dangers of that Arbor and its deadly poisonous sap or resin. He does that in the context of one of those Dutch Colonial Wars in what is today Indonesia. The Dutch and their proxies on Ambon fought the so-called Fifth Ambonese War (1651) against the Sultan of Ternate (and allies of Makassar) who took exception to their monopoly of the clove trade. The Sulawesans fought against cannon and muskets with blowpipes equipped with poisoned darts (which Rumphius describes carefully and interestingly). The poison was taken from that Upas Tree and became deadly mixed with 'bitter ginger'. In fact the Ambonese-Dutch soldiers were more afraid of those darts than of their own sophisticated metal.
Rumphius describes how once hit by such a dart an antidote was what he - in his Dutch version - coyly calls in Latin 'Excrementum Humanum'. He adds that if a given soldier didn't have any of his own, a fellow would be happy to give him a crap. This stuff served as an emetic, thus expelling the poison. But a far better remedy says our anthropologist-naturalist is a medicine concocted from the root of our pretty pink Crinum asiaticum. It's an even more powerful emetic... And, I would think, just a bit less revolting.
In the inset I've provided a colored engraving taken from Rumphius's Herbarium. It was published by Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz (1731-1807) around 1775.
Perhaps Less Revolting. Crinum asiaticum, Asian Poison Bulb, KLCC Park, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Amazing Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702), the Blind Pliny of Ambon - whom I've often mentioned in these pages - was a great botanist of the East Indies. More than that, he was also a general naturalist and anthropologist, and he writes most colorfully and engagingly.
In Book VI of his great Herbarium amboinense he waxes eloquent in many pages on our Crinum asiaticum, known to him as Radix toxicaria especially in connection with the Upas Tree, Antiaris toxicaria, for him Arbor toxicaria.
Rumphius in Book II devotes lots of space to the dangers of that Arbor and its deadly poisonous sap or resin. He does that in the context of one of those Dutch Colonial Wars in what is today Indonesia. The Dutch and their proxies on Ambon fought the so-called Fifth Ambonese War (1651) against the Sultan of Ternate (and allies of Makassar) who took exception to their monopoly of the clove trade. The Sulawesans fought against cannon and muskets with blowpipes equipped with poisoned darts (which Rumphius describes carefully and interestingly). The poison was taken from that Upas Tree and became deadly mixed with 'bitter ginger'. In fact the Ambonese-Dutch soldiers were more afraid of those darts than of their own sophisticated metal.
Rumphius describes how once hit by such a dart an antidote was what he - in his Dutch version - coyly calls in Latin 'Excrementum Humanum'. He adds that if a given soldier didn't have any of his own, a fellow would be happy to give him a crap. This stuff served as an emetic, thus expelling the poison. But a far better remedy says our anthropologist-naturalist is a medicine concocted from the root of our pretty pink Crinum asiaticum. It's an even more powerful emetic... And, I would think, just a bit less revolting.
In the inset I've provided a colored engraving taken from Rumphius's Herbarium. It was published by Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz (1731-1807) around 1775.