

446 SUPPOSED REMEDIES. 



the Amazon, Ghiailaga, and Brazil, can be procured, without 

 being confounded together, from the places where they are 

 prepared. Since the discovery of prussic acid,* and many 

 other new substances eminently deleterious, the introduc- 

 tion of poisons prepared by savage nations is less feared in 

 Europe; we cannot however appeal to ostrongly to the 

 vigilance of those who keep such noxious substances in the 

 midst of populous cities, the centres of civilization, misery, 

 and depravity. Our botanical knowledge of the plants 

 employed in making poison can be but very slowly acquired. 

 Most of the Indians who make poisoned arrows, are totally 

 ignorant of the nature of the venomous substances they use, 

 and which they obtain from other people. A mysterious veil 

 everywhere covers the history of poisons and of their anti- 

 dotes. Their preparation among savages is the monopoly 

 of the piaches, who are at once priests, jugglers, and physi- 

 cians; it is only from the natives who are transplanted to 

 the missions, that any certain notions can be acquired on 

 matters so problematical. Ages elapsed before Europeans 

 became acquainted through the investigation of M. Mutis, 

 with the bejuco del guaco (Mikania guaco), which is the most 

 powerful of all antidotes against the bite of serpents, and of 

 which we were fortunate enough to give the first botanical 

 description. 



The opinion is very general in the missions that no cure 

 is possible, if the curare be fresh, well concentrated, and 

 have staid long in the wound, ito have entered freely 

 into the circulation. Among the specifics employed on the 

 banks of the Orinoco, and in the Indian Archipelago, the 

 most celebrated is muriate of soda.f The wound is rubbed 



* First obtained by Scheele in the year 1 782. Gay-Lussac (to whom 

 we are indebted for the complete analysis of this acid) observes, that it 

 can never become very dangerous to society, because its peculiar smell 

 (that of bitter almonds) betrays its presence, and the facility with which 

 it is decomposed makes it difficult to preserve. 



f Oviedo (Sommario delle Indie Orientali) recommends sea-water as an 

 antidote against vegetable poisons. The people in the missions never fail 

 to assure European travellers, that they have no more to fear from arrows 

 dipped in curare, if they have a little salt in their mouths, than from the 

 electric shocks of the gymnoti, when chewing tobacco. Raleigh recommends 

 as an antidote to the ourari (curare) the juice of garlick. [But later 

 experiments have completely proved that if the poison has once fairly 



