DIFFERENT PROCESSES. 443 



nearly the same; but there is no proof thtt the different 

 poisons sold by the same name at the Orinoco and the 

 Amazon are identical, and derived from the same plants. 

 Orfila, therefore, in his excellent work On Poisons, has very 

 judiciously separated the wourali of Dutch Guiana, the 

 eurare of the Orinoco, the ticuna of the Amazon, and all 

 those substances which have been too vaguely united under 

 the name of ' American poisons.' Possibly at some future 

 day, one and the same alkaline principle, similar to morphine 

 and strychnia, will be found in poisonous plants belonging 

 to different genera. 



At the Orinoco the curare de raiz (of the root) is distin- 

 guished from the curare de bejuco (of lianas, or of the bark 

 of branches). We saw only the latter prepared ; the former 

 is weaker, and much less "esteemed. At the river Amazon 

 we learned to distinguish the poisons of the Ticuna, Yagua, 

 Peva, and Xibaro Indians, which being all obtained from 

 the same plant, perhaps differ only by a more or less careful 

 preparation. The Ticuna poison, to which La Condamine 

 has given so much celebrity in Europe, and which some- 

 what improperly begins to bear the name of ticuna, is 

 extracted from a liana which grows in the island of 

 Mormorote, on the Upper Maranon. This poison is em- 

 ployed partly by the Ticunas, who remain independent on 

 the Spanish territory near the sources of the Yacarique; 

 and partly by Indians of the same tribe, inhabiting the 

 Portuguese mission of Loreto. The poisons we have just 

 named differ totally from that of La Peca, and from the 

 poison of Lamas and of Moyobamba. I enter into these 

 details because the vestiges of plants which we were able to 

 examine, proved to us (contrary to the common opinion) that 

 the three poisons of the Ticunas, of La Peca, and of Moyo- 

 bamba are not obtained from the same species, probably not 

 even from congeneric plants. In proportion as the pre- 

 paration of the curare is simple, that of the poison of Moyo- 

 bamba is a long and complicated process. With the juice 

 of the bejuco de ambihuasca, which is the principal ingredient, 

 are mixed pimento, tobacco, barbasco (Jacquinia armillaris), 

 sanango (Tabernae montana), and the milk of some other 

 apocyne. The fresh juice of the ambihuasca has a delete- 

 noas action when in contact with the blood ; the juice of the 



