ABSTRACT
Deemed the world’s deadliest tree, news of the manchineel’s toxicity circulated in European reports of the Caribbean since the sixteenth century. Disguised within the mangrove thickets where it grows, from an ecological perspective the manchineel (Hippomane mancinella) is an overdefended flowering tree from the spurge (Euphorbiaceae) family. In the 1820s, French colonial physician Jean-Baptiste Ricord (1777–1837) seized on this plant’s infamous reputation to transform knowledge of its venom into a tool of political control. Through experiments with the tree’s bark, fruits, leaves, roots, and seeds, Ricord subjected his enslaved and canine subjects to dermatitis, violent diuretic and purgative effects, and even death in an attempt to ascertain the poison’s source and potential antidote. Ricord’s manuscripts preserve a rare view into the rationale for medical experimentation in the French Atlantic colonies. In them, Ricord candidly explained that he feared non-European knowledge about nature and desired to keep subservient populations at bay by removing the potential weaponry of poisons drawn from the local environment.
