The fruit of the cosso is gathered for medicinal purposes before the seeds are quite ripe, and whilst still a number of the flowerets remain unchanged. The bunches are suspended in the sun to dry, and if not required for immediate use deposited in a jar. Cosso is taken in considerable quantities to the market, where it is disposed of in exchange for grain or cotton, a handful of the latter, or a drinking-hornful of the former, purchasing sufficient for two doses, two large handsful. When taken, this medicine is reduced upon the mill to a very fine powder, having previously been well dried in the sun upon a small straw mat, upon which from some superstitious reason or other, several bits of charcoal are placed. The largest drinking-horn being then produced, the powdered cosso is mixed with nearly a pint of water, and, if it can be obtained, a large spoonful of honey is also added. When everything is quite ready, a naked sword is placed flat upon the ground, upon which the patient stands. The nurse then takes between two bits of sticks, as a substitute for tongs, a small bit of lighted charcoal, and carries it around the edge of the vessel three times, mumbling a prayer, at the end of which the charcoal is extinguished in the medicine, which is immediately drank off by the patient, who all this time has been pulling most extraordinary faces, expressive of his disgust for the draught. The operation is speedy and effectual, and to judge by the prostration of strength it occasioned in my servants, when they employed this medicine, it must be dreadfully severe. I can answer for this, that it occasions frequent miscarriages, often fatal to the mother, and even men have been known, after a large dose, to have died the same day from its consequences. I am, therefore, surprised at the noise this remedy has occasioned the last few years in Europe, as if it promised to be a valuable addition to our Materia Medica. This, I conceive, can never be, for no civilized stomach could bear the bulk of the drug necessary to produce its effects. Even in Abyssinia it is but barely tolerated, and let another remedy, equally efficacious for dislodging tape-worm be introduced into that country, and the use of cosso will be soon abandoned. In fact, several other vegetable productions are now employed to escape the punishment of a dose of this violent cathartic. Among many I could enumerate, but without any benefit arising from the list, is the “kolah,” the same berry which is used in making the “barilla” tedge, also the red berries of a climbing plant called “inkoko,” growing in the forest at the foot of the hill of Kundi, near Michael wans. These are swallowed whole, like pills, but a very great number are required to produce the desired results.