The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7167 p444
29 September 2001

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Demoniac frenzy
Beans on the beach
Leechcraft examined

Demoniac frenzy

In his ‘Paradise lost’ (1667), John Milton refers to “Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy / And moon-struck madness”. We encounter these alarming states often enough in our troubled world, and the worst by far is the frenzy that actuates people to commit acts of violence that affect the innocent and the guilty indiscriminately. Fanaticism, which is another name for it, is defined as excessive enthusiasm of an inspirational kind. The word is derived from fanum, a temple, and the idea that the occult forces operating within the temple sent their worshippers forth filled with a blind fury against all who differed from them in belief.

The 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States, in which thousands died, are an extreme example of the results of such fanaticism. But when we are called upon to reckon with fanatics and their effects on society, we should recollect that not all fanaticism is religiously derived. There are political, social and professional varieties, all of which bring us face to face with violent situations. They were elaborated in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Robert Burton in his ‘Anatomy of melancholy’ (1621) wrote of zealous leaders who “to advance the common cause, undergo any miseries, turn traitors, assassinates, pseudo-martyrs, in the full assurance and hope of reward in that other world, that they shall certainly merit by it, win heaven, be canonised for saints”. Burton commented that these individuals “are truly possessed with blind zeal and misled with superstition.”

Modern psychologists argue that inter-group conflict and prejudice may arise from three main causes: the make-up of individuals, the role of external and environmental factors in building up tensions, and the perceived significance of group membership within society. Inter-group conflict arises when individuals think or behave antagonistically towards members of another group and become frustrated and motivated by their imagined or real differences, which they regard as irreconcilable. Mere prejudice is believed to signify a difference in personality structure. It may become aggravated in various ways by conditioning from infancy. An extremely strict upbringing by parents who are excessively conformist and conventional within the limits of their social circle is believed to predispose a child to prejudice and ultimately to fanaticism. The energy repressed by the parent becomes stored in the child’s psyche and eventually is discharged towards fancied enemies. Frustration, too, by the rest of society leads the individual towards a build-up of repressed energy which in the course of time, and given an opportunity, may find its way into unreasoning violence divested of any tinge of personal or group responsibility.

Such is the psychological background to a great deal of the mindless violence that increasingly characterises human affairs. The correction of this lamentable situation is bound to take a long time, and we must somehow work out an approach that will diminish its impact. It is strange to reflect that behaviour that we usually attribute to lack of discipline in childhood may in fact result from an excess of blind discipline.

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Beans on the beach

Few pleasures exceed that of finding a strange and exotic object washed in by a high tide and stranded among the seaweed. Today only the lone wanderer accompanying a dog along the strand during the off-season can expect to make such a discovery.

Even those discarded containers with labels in a foreign tongue, which bear witness to the untidy habits of seagoing crews, sometimes have a fascination that transcends the sense of disgust they trigger. And now and then, following an autumn storm, unusual seaweeds can be collected by those curious to identify them and their probable place of origin.

Now and then the washing overboard of a deck cargo produces a prolific jetsam that intrigues the finder. I remember once encountering many hundreds of grapefruit at the head of an unfrequented cove. Oranges, too, are not unusual. But the really fascinating articles of jetsam are those which hail from halfway across the globe, endowed with the ability to float and to resist waterlogging by the oceans. Among these are the coconut, which is obvious enough, and other floating fruit said to comprise some 40 different species to be found around our own coasts.

An article in New Scientist for 21 July describes some of the different beans we may expect to encounter. It is claimed that Christopher Columbus was prompted to voyage to the New World by coming across sea beans stranded on the Atlantic coast of Europe. And the naturalist Hans Sloane came across the enormous seeds of the tropical vine Entada gigas while working in Jamaica, finding them identical with seeds washed up on Scottish and Irish shores. In the Outer Hebrides the seed of the tropical liana Merremia discoidesperma, which is black and marked with the resemblance of a cross, was called “Mary’s bean” and regarded with some reverence as a rosary bead or protective talisman. Schoolchildren have carried sea beans to ensure success in examinations, and they have been turned into decorative objects.

The transatlantic voyage of a sea bean may take longer than a year, so that only the toughest are likely to land on our own shores. Nevertheless, it is often possible to encourage them to germinate in a greenhouse. An unidentified seed may produce an unexpectedly large plant. The Caribbean nickernut can produce the shrub Caesalpinia bonduc, which is prickly and two metres high, and from Entada gigas sea beans grows a vine that can climb 20m with support. For those who seek such exotics, our western and northern coasts after winter has brought westerly gales are the place to look.

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Leechcraft examined

A comment by David Fishlock in Chemistry in Britain for August concerns the use of leeches in medicine, a habit that might provoke accusations of cruelty from animal protection enthusiasts. The use of leeches has recently returned to medical practice for specific purposes , but in the 19th century physicians and veterinarians sacrificed these creatures by the million. Fishlock states that the four largest British dealers in leeches imported over seven million in 1836, while in 1867 a single Australian exporter handled between two and three million.

The rationale for applying leeches in therapy was that inflammation was due to too much blood in the affected area, and leeches offered one method of bleeding the patient. Each animal could remove 15ml of blood before falling away satiated. The anaesthetic, anticoagulant and diffusing effects of leech secretion made the method more efficient than surgery, and sucrose or ethanol could be applied to encourage the leech to bite. Leeches were often recycled after persuading them to disgorge by immersion in salt water, and might be used 50 times.

Early in the 19th century leeches were harvested by children who waded in leech infested waters and then removed them mechanically. Sometimes they were caught by nets baited with fresh liver. France, Germany, Silesia and Poland were prime sources, and farmers drove horses and cows through swamps to collect them.

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