The killer bean of Calabar

摘要

In 19th-century West Africa, the word esere struck terror into the hearts of criminals. It was the nameof a small brown bean which, when swallowed, brought on a rapid and painless death - but only in those who had committed crimes. The innocentsurvived. Europeans who came in search of the bean, keen to testand exploit its mystical powers, returned home empty-handed. Unknown to the explorers, invisible hands had ensured that the "ordeal bean" was impossible to find. Eventually, the Reverend Hope Waddell from the Scottish Missionary Society's Nigerian mission at Old Calabar (left) got his hands on a few beans and sent them back to Britain, where scientists identified the plant it came from, isolated its active ingredients and put it to medical use. A century-and-a-half later, their descendants are experimenting with it as a means of protecting soldiers against lethal nerve agents.