USUAL SYMPTOMS. 
447 
with this salt, which is also taken internally. I had uiyself 
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 G uiana. 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 he 
wounded with poisoned arrows, if the wound he well laid 
open, and the point imbued with poison he withdrawn imme- 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 tbev 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 all 
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 ot 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 was any cure 
effected.] 
