CUE ART OR WOOEAEA POISON. 371 



ployed in the preparation of curari, and he has had prepared under his 

 own supervision, entirely from vegetal substances, one of the best of 

 American curaris, that of the Tecuna Indians living' on the Calderao, 

 Brazil, near the Peruvian border. Some fine scrapings of Urari uva^ 

 a climbing plant of the genus Strychnos, and of the Eko or Pani, of 

 the family Menispermacem, also a climber, were steeped in cold water. 

 This liquid was then boiled for six hours, and there were thrown into 

 it fragments of various plants, among them an Aroiclea (Taja), and 

 three different species of Piperacece. In this way the liquid was made 

 to assume the consistency of mucilage ; it was then suiFered to cool, 

 and became as thick as shoe-blacking. Dr. Jobert has found by ex- 

 periment that the Urari and the Taja are the most rapidly fatal in 

 their effects of all the ingredients, and that the Pani, administered by 

 itself, is less rapid. 



The Indians use curari to poison their arrows both for hunting and 

 for war. The hunting-arrows, intended to be shot from a bow, have a 

 detachable point ; those shot from the sarbacand or blow-gun are very 

 small, and consist of a slender shaft of iron-wood with a very sharp 

 point, which bears the poison. Sometimes the poison is used highly 

 diluted or in very small quantity, so as to produce in the victim simply 

 a numbness, which passes away by degrees, but which in the mean time 

 checks the animal in its course or in its flight, or causes it to fall from 

 tho tree in which it may happen to be. It is thus, we are told, that 

 tho Indians capture monkeys and parrots for sale to the European 

 traders. Often the animal is killed by the arrow, but nevertheless its 

 flesh may be eaten with impunity, for the very minute dose of the 

 curari which enters the stomach with a mass of food is innocuous. 

 Indeed, we know that curari, like the venom of serpents and the saliva 

 of a rabid dog, may be introduced without injury into the digestive 

 organs, provided the mucous surfaces of the latter are free from all 

 lesion. 



Curari has been mixed with the food given to dogs and rabbits in 

 quantity far more than enough to produce fatal poisoning through a 

 wound, and yet the animals have suffered no inconvenience. 



Claude Bernard, however, has very clearly shown that this innocu- 

 ousness of curari when administered through the stomach is relative 

 only. In this respect curari resembles many other substances, both 

 medicines and poisons. The peculiarity of their action is explained by 

 the property which amorphous substances possess of being very slowly 

 absorbed by the mucous membranes. By young mammals and birds 

 while fasting, and while intestinal absorption is very active, curari 

 cannot be taken into the stomach with impunity. We can only say 

 that it takes a much larger quantity of curari to produce poisoning 

 through the digestive organs than through an external wound. 



Curari introduced into living tissues produces death all the sooner 

 the more quickly it enters the circulation. Death comes quicker when 



