TTSTT^L SYMPTOMS 447 



with this salt, which is also taken internally. I had myself 

 no direct and sufficiently convincing proof of the action of 

 this specific ; and the experiments of Delille and Majendie 

 rather tend to disprove its efficacy. On the banks of the 

 Amazon, the preference among the antidotes is given to 

 sugar ; and muriate of soda being a substance almost un- 

 known to the Indians of the forests, it is probable that the 

 honey of bees, and that farinaceous sugar which oozes 

 from plantains dried in the sun, were anciently employed 

 throughout Guiana. In vain have ammonia and eau-ae-luce 

 been tried against 'the curare ; it is now known that these 

 specifics are uncertain, even when applied to wounds caused 

 by the bite of serpents. Sir Everard Home has shown that 

 a cure is often attributed to a remedy, when it is owing only 

 to the slightness of the wound, and to a very circumscribed 

 action of the poison. Animals may with impunity be 

 wounded with poisoned arrows, if the wound be well laid 

 open, and the point imbued with poison be withdrawn imme- 

 diately after the wound is made. If salt or sugar be em- 

 ployed in these cases, people are tempted to regard them as 

 excellent specifics, Indians, who had been wounded in 

 battle by weapons dipped in the curare, described to us the 

 symptoms they experienced, which were entirely similar to 

 those observed in the bite of serpents. The wounded per- 

 son feels congestion in the head, vertigo, and nausea. He 

 is tormented by a raging thirst, and numbness pervades aD 

 the parts that are near the wound. 



The old Indian, who was called the poison-master, seemed 

 flattered by the interest we took in his chemical processes. 

 He found us sufficiently intelligent to lead him to the be- 

 lief that we knew how to make soap, an art which, next to 

 the preparation of curare, appeared to him one of the finest 

 of human inventions. When the liquid poison had been 

 poured into the vessels prepared for their reception, we 



entered into combination with the blood there is no remedy, either for 

 man or any of the inferior animals. The wourali and other poisons men- 

 tioned by Humboldt have, since the publication of this work, been care- 

 fully analysed by the first chemists of Europe, and experiments made on 

 their symptoms and supposed remedies. Artificial inflation of the lungs 

 was found the most successful, but in very few instances '\as ny curt 

 cflVcted.] 



