ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 165 



( 5S ) p. 41. " Apparently weaponless, and yet prepared for murder" 

 The Otomacs often poison the thumb-nail 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 un- 

 fortunately we did not find it in blossom. Judging by its physiog- 

 nomy it appears to be related to Strychnos (Rel. hist. t. ii. pp. 

 547-556). Since the notice in the work referred to, of the curare 

 or ourari (previously 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 con- 

 siderable quantity to Europe. Richard Schomburgk found the 

 plant in blossom in Guiana, on the banks of the Pomeroon and the 

 Sururu, in the territory of the Caribs, who are not, however, ac- 

 quainted with the manner of preparing the poison. His instructive 

 work (Reisen in Britisch-Gruiana, 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 strychnine. Virchou and 

 Miinter's interesting physiological experiments make it probable 

 that the curare or ourari poison does not kill by mere external ab- 

 sorption, 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 mus- 

 cular movement, whilst the involuntary functions of the heart and 

 intestines still continue. Compare, also, the older chemical analysis 

 of Boussingault, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, t. xxxix. 

 1828, pp. 24-37. 



