A branch of the purging nut is used to pick out the guilty

Cases heard by the Conseil Superieur of Martinique in 1755 and again in 1767 describe the same procedure. Enslaved people were lined up and touched with a branch of the medecinier, the tree also called the Barbados nut or purging nut, in one instance by a small child, and the guilty were expected to collapse in fits of convulsions and shouting. Enslavers reporting these events told the court that everyone on the plantations held that contact with the branch would torment a poisoner. Pierre Clement de Laussat recorded the same use of medecinier branches in a diary entry in 1807. Eating the seeds causes vomiting and stomach pain, which Orfila noted in 1814, while touching the leaves and branches does nothing at all. The ritual worked through participation. It needed the whole community present, and the verdict it produced was one they had reached together.