DIFFERENT PROCESSES. 
443 
nearly the same; but there is no proof th.it 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 ivourali of Dutch Guiana, the 
curare 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 lejuco (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, Tagua, 
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 
Mormorofce, on the Upper Marafion. 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 lejuco de ambihuasca, which is the principal ingredient, 
are mixed pimento, tobacco, barbaseo (Jaequinia armillaris), 
sanango (Tabemac montana), and the milk of some other 
ftpocynete. The fresh juice of the ambihuasca has a delete- 
rious action when in contact with the blood ; the juice of the 
