527 



These fears vanish by habit and reasoning. Mr. 

 Magendie has even proved by ingenious experi- 

 ments on transfusion, that the blood of animals, 

 in which the bitter strychnoses of India have 

 produced a deleterious effect, has no fatal action 

 on other animals. A dog received a consider- 

 able quantity of poisoned blood into his veins 

 without any trace of irritation being perceived 

 in the spinal marrow*. 



I placed the most active curare in contact 

 with the crural nerves of a frog, without per- 

 ceiving any sensible change in measuring the 

 degree of irritability of the organs, by means of 

 an arc formed of heterogeneous metals. Galva- 

 nic experiments succeeded upon birds, some 

 minutes after I had killed them with a poisoned 

 arrow. These observations are not uninterest- 

 ing, when we recollect, that a solution of the 

 upas tieute poured upon the sciatic nerve, or 

 insinuated into the texture of the nerve, pro- 

 duces also a sensible effect on the irritability of 

 the organs by immediate contact with the me- 

 dullary substance-^. The danger of the curare, as 

 of most of the other strychneae, (for we continue 

 to believe, that the mwvacure belongs to a neigh- 

 bouring family,) results only from the action of 

 the poison on the vascular system. At May- 



* Magendie, sur les Organes de V Absorption, 1809, p. 13. 

 f Raffinemi-Delille 5 sur le Poison dc Java, 1809. p. 15. 



