Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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At The Instant When The Glutinous Juice Of The Kiracaguero-Tree Is
Poured Into The Venomous Liquor Well Concentrated, And Kept In A State
Of Ebullition, It Blackens, And Coagulates Into A Mass Of The
Consistence Of Tar, Or Of A Thick Syrup.
This mass is the curare of
commerce.
When we hear the Indians say that the kiracaguero is as
necessary as the bejuco do mavacure in the manufacture of the poison,
we may be led into error by the supposition that the former also
contains some deleterious principle, while it only serves (as the
algarrobo, or any other gummy substance would do) to give more body to
the concentrated juice of the curare. The change of colour which the
mixture undergoes is owing to the decomposition of a hydruret of
carbon; the hydrogen is burned, and the carbon is set free. The curare
is sold in little calabashes; but its preparation being in the hands
of a few families, and the quantity of poison attached to each dart
being extremely small, the best curare, that of Esmeralda and
Mandavaca, is sold at a very high price. This substance, when dried,
resembles opium; but it strongly absorbs moisture when exposed to the
air. Its taste is an agreeable bitter, and M. Bonpland and myself have
often swallowed small portions of it. There is no danger in so doing,
if it be certain that neither lips nor gums bleed. In experiments made
by Mangili on the venom of the viper, one of his assistants swallowed
all the poison that could be extracted from four large vipers of
Italy, without being affected by it.
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