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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 165 ( 52) p. 41.-Apparently 1oeaponless, and yet p1·epared for murder." The Otomacs often poison the thumb-na.il with Curare. A mere scratch of the nail is deadly if the curare mixes with the blood. We obtained specimens of the climbing plant, from the juice of which the curare is prepared, at Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco, but unfortunately we did not find it in blossom. Judging by its physiognomy it appears to be related to Strychnos (Rel. hist. t. ii. pp. 54 7-556). Since the notice in the work referred to, of the curare or ourari (previou ly mentioned by Raleigh, both as a plant and as a poison), the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk have done much towards making us accurately acquainted with the nature and preparation of this substance, of which I was the first to bring a considerable quantity to Europe. Richard Schomburgk found the plan't in blossom in Guiana, on the banks of the Pomeroon and the Sururu, in the territory of the Caribs, who are not, however, acquainted with the manner of preparing the poison. His instructive work (Reisen in Britisch-Guiana, th. i. s. 441-461), contains the chemical analysis of the juice of the Strychnos toxifera, which notwithstanding its name and its organic structure, does not contain, according to Boussingault, any trace of strichnine. Virchou and Munter's interesting physiological experiments make it probable that the curare or ourari poison does not kill by mere external absorption, but only when absorbed by living animal substance of which the continuity has been severed (i.e. which has been wounded slightly); that it does not belong to the class of tetanic poisons; and that its particular effect is to take away the power of voluntary muscular movement, whilst the involuntary functions of the heart and intestines still continue. Compare, also, the older ch~mical analysis of Boussingault, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, t. xxxix. 1828, pp. 24-37. |