DEADLY URARI.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 2210, 29 August 1910, Page 7

DEADLY URARI.

PREPARED BY BRAZILIAN TRIBES. "Urari (or Curari) is the most powerful sedative iu nature ; tipped with It, the needle-like arrows used by the Indians of the Upper Amazon, in their blow-guns, will kill an ox in 20 minutes and a monkey in ten." This is substantially the statement made by Professor James Orton, A. M., in his volume "'The Andes and the Amazons." The fact that the secret of compounding this unique poison has been kept so long from its numberless seekers is perhaps th» strangest thing about it. The first mention of it made to the civilised world was by Orellana in his account of his descent of the "great river" when he deserted with a portion of the men from the conquering army of Francisco Pizarro and sailed down to the Atlantic Ocean in 1539. He wrote that his company was "'fired upon by the hostile Indians with minute, poisoned arrows." This is the same trip when he reported that he was attacked by a band of savage female warriors with bows and arrows. His report of the poisoned arrows ha 3 been verified by later travellers, although the '"female warriors," from whom the mighty river derived its name, proved to be a shiftless tribe of savages too lazy to make other garments, who wore in the place of clothes a sheet of thin bark with a hole in the middle to slip over the head, after which it was belted at th's waist, and was easily mistaken for a woman's dress. The same costume Is still worn by them.

The great traveller and naturalist, Baron von Humboldt, in 1803 was the first to bring to Europe a sufficient quantity of the poison for analysis. It was found to contain a hitherto unknown alkaloid, which was named curarine.

Urari is prepared by only a few tribes of savages on the upper waters of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, where it is almost the only article made for sale. It is sold mostly to other tribes, who use it for killing birds whose plumage has been in greac demand in late years among the river traders.

The price of urari, where it is made, is quite uniformly its woight in silver. In Quito, where considerable is marketed, a half-gill cup of it costs 1.50 dollars.

The gun in which these poisoned arrows are used consists of a straight bamboo tube, from five to six feet long, with a sight on one end and a funnel-expansion to fit the mouth at the other. The principle is precisely the same as a schoolboy's tube for blowing putty balls, but the bore is so large, about $-inch, that it requires more breath than untrained lungs can supply to make it effective. Even the most expert can shoot only a short distance, as compared with firearms, but their accuracy is wonderful when one considers the difficulty of sighting a tube from the position in which it is held.

The arrows consist of a point of wood or bone, not more than an inch long, and the size of a toothpick, in which is attached a little tuft of the airy fibre of the silk cotton tree, which is as light as thistledown, and will not pack like cotton fibre, and bo lose the necessary symmetry of form to insure accuracy. The point is then dipped in a thick solution of the poison, dried, and is ready for use. These arrows, owing to their lightness, travel in an almost horizontal line until the air's resistance stops them, when they drop almost straight to the ground. Ever since the unique qualities of urari became known, great interest has been taken and many efforts made to learn the secret of compounding it. Humboldt learned that one plant was always an important ingredient ; this is the vine, Strychnos toxifera, which, however, contains no trace of strychnine, but is very poisonous. It must be used in combination with other plants to produce the characteristic effects of urari.

In 1872 one additional ingredient was learned by Professor Orton, who wrote, "Tobacco and the milk of another plant is added, coagulating it." Without this "milk of another plant," it is not the pre-eminent sedative which the medical world seeks—one which produces death, indistinguishable from sleep, in its approach. A few weeks before my return home from Brazil a gentleman left the steamer on its downward trip and came for two weeks' rest to the plantation where I was visiting, before taking the sea voyage home. He was a professor in a German university, he told us, and had spent two years 1000 miles further up the Amazon, among the Ticuna Indians, and was now on his way back. He was thin and sallow, and seemed to need rest. A few days before his depart/are I questioned him about the purpose of such an unusual proceeding, and he related the following experience :

"The medical faculty of our university has been experimenting for several years with urari, and believed they were on the eve of finding a way of using the tremendous potentiality of this unique poison to good account in treating some nervous diseases when our supply became exhausted.

"After thoroughly satisfying ourselves that some vital element was unknown to the travellers who believed they had learned the secret, and had given us their preparations to test, the university decided to send a botanist, who was also a physician, among the Indians who had made our best samples, and who was to remain long enough to secure their carefully-guarded secret. I was the one chosen and equipped for this service, and started immediately. "I was six months before I could get to work. I had to find a village where they made it, learn a little of

their inhuman language, and win their confidence enough to be received among them without exciting their suspicions of my object in coming, for their secret had often been sought by visitors, and they were very suspicions. "'When one day it was announced that urari was to be made, I joined oue of the parties sent out to gather the vine, Strychnos toxiiera, which I already knew, having seen it in some European botanical gardens, cultivated a 8 a curiosity. This was cut in suitable lengths and thrown into a kettle of water, which was kept boiling three days, adding moro and throwing away the old, after it had cooked six hours.

"Tha third night, when the vine had all been used, the refuse was thrown away, and some hoodoo ceremonies and incantations were performed by the leaders as they marched around the kettle.

| "I think I should say here that from first to last three old men directed everything, and I believe that other members of the tribe knew a3 little about making urari as I did. They seemed, however, to be greatly impressed by the ceremonies. I "The next day only three people 'were sent .to the woods, each to gather some one plant. I had no trouble in identifying all these before they were put into the kettle of boiling water, left after the vines had been thrown away, and I was encouraged.

•'The following day nearly the whole tribe went out in small parties for the final gathering. When they came in at midday, each had a bundle of plants containing many varieties, which were thrown down in a pile beside the kettle. It would have taken the best botanist a week to identify them all, even if there had not been some of them that were unknown and unnamed by botanists. "That evening a short ceremony was performed, in which the great medicine spirit was asked to show them which of these were to be used. Then all three began to pick them up, one by one. Nearly all were thrown away, and the few chosen were hastily tossed into the pot and lost sight of in the cloud of evilsmelling steam that rose above it. So many kinds of leaves of tropical plants exhude a "white milky sap" that I saw at once that I was defeated in my quest, at least in that settlement.

"However., I went down the river to another village where urari was made, but only stayed long enough to learn that similar tactics were used for guarding the secret. "I realised that I was beaten. My health had suffered by exposure and unaccustomed food, and I started home, after buying, for its weight in silver, all the poison that they had ready for market."—Dewey Austin Cobb, in "Geographic Magazine."