152 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



but, unfortunately, we did not find the plant when in blossom. 

 From its physiognomy, it seems to be allied to Strychnos* 



Since I wrote the above notice of the Curare, or Urari, as 

 the plant and poison were called by Raleigh, the brothers 

 Robert and Richard Schomburgk have rendered important 

 service to science by making us accurately acquainted with 

 the nature and mode of preparing this substance, which I was 

 the first to bring to Europe in any considerable quantity. 

 Richard Schomburgk found this creeping plant in flower in 

 Guiana, on the banks of the Pomeroon and Sururu, in the 

 territory of the Caribs, who are, however, ignorant of the 

 mode of preparing the poison. His instructive workf gives 

 the chemical analysis of the juice of the Strychnos toxifera, 

 which, notwithstanding its name and organic structure, con- 

 tains, according to Boussingault, no trace of strychnine. Vir- 

 chow's and Munter's interesting physiological experiments 

 show that the curare or urari poison does not appear to 

 destroy by resorption from without, but chiefly when it is 

 absorbed by the animal substance after the separation of the 

 continuity of the latter ; . that curare does not belong to tetanic 

 poisons; and that it especially produces paralysis, i.e., a ces- 

 sation of voluntary muscular movement, while the function 

 of the involuntary muscles (as the heart and intestines) con- 

 tinues unimpaired. + 



* See my Eclat, historique, t. ii. pp. 547 — 556. 

 T Heisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i. s. 441—461. 

 X Compare also the older chemical analysis of Boussingault, in the 

 Annates de Chimie et Physique, t. xxxix. 1828, pp. 21 — 37. 



