130 
THE AMAZON AND MADEIllA RIVERS. 
Let us return, however, from the snowj' heights of the Andes to the 
hot lowlands of tho Amazon, where, in the shade of endless forest, there 
is many a herb of mysterious virtue, as yet known only to wild Indian 
tribes, while the fame of others has already spread over the ocean. Who 
has not heard of the urary, or curai-e, tlie quick arroAV-poison which, in 
the hands of clever physiologists and physicians, promises not only to 
become a valuable drug, but to give us interesting disolosiu'cs on the 
activity of the nerves? 
The wondrous tales of former travellers regarding the preparation of 
this urary have been rectified long ago. The venom of snakes is not 
used for it, but tho juice of the bruised stems and leaves of several kinds 
of strychnos and apocyneas is simply boiled over a coal fire, mixed with 
tobaceo juice and capsicum (Spanish pepper), and thickened with tht' 
sticky milk of some Euphorbiacca to a Ixard mass. This manipulation, 
moreover, is not undertaken by the old sqxiaws of the tribe, devoting 
themselves to a painful death thereby, as the old stories ran ; but, as 
there is no danger whatever, by the young waves of the w’arriors, w^ho 
look upon it as part of their household duties, or by the men themselves. 
There are about eight or ten different poisons of similar, but not identical, 
composition and prepai’ation, of which the urary of the Maousi Indians, 
and the curare, from Venezuela and New Granada, are considered the 
most powerful. 
This dark brown, pitchy substance, usually kept in little earthen pots, 
is lightly spread over the points of the w'capons, their long arrows, their 
light spears, and the thin wooden shafts, of about a foot long, which they 
shoot through immense blow- tubes (sarabaeanas). Immediately upon 
the diffusion in the blood of the slightest portion of the’ poison tho 
limbs, one by one, refuse to work, as if overcome with torpor, while 
the mind apparently retains its activity until death ensues, — Avhich it 
does in a few minutes’ time, fi’om palsy of the lungs. It is strange 
that only those nerves are affected which regulate the movements 
depending on our own will, wEereas those movements we cannot control, 
the beating of the heart for example, continue unaltered to tho very last. 
Experiments made by French physicians upon animals have showm 
that, if the limgs are artificially kept in activity for several hours, the 
poison will be rejected by natural means, and no bad consequences 
will en.sue. Of late the principal objection to tho employment of 
the urary in medicine — its unequal strength — has been comj)letely over- 
