446 
SUPPOSED REMEDIES. 
the Amazon, Guallaga, and Brazil, can bo 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 th e hejuco del c/uaco (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, to 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 1782. 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. 
t 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 
