On the urari : the deadly arrow-poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana / by Richard Schomburgk.

  • Schomburgk, Richard, 1811-1891.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the urari : the deadly arrow-poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana / by Richard Schomburgk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    16/20
    We then inflated the lungs and kept up respiration artificially for twenty- eight minutes; in consequence the heart began to beat again, and made 264 strokes in one minute. There was no appearance of the function in the sensorium or any active signs of motion, but on applying very strong mechanical irritation the animal muscular fibre was contracted. The following experiments were also made by my late brother, Dr. Otto Scliomburgk, and me, with a similar solution:—A Newfoundland dog was' wounded in the ear; the wound was about one inch long, and fourteen drops of the solution were applied to the wound. For the first five minutes the dog walked about. In the sixth minute he stood still and began to smell the ground, closed his eyes and opened his mouth several times ; at the tenth minute he sat down on his hind legs, and dropped his head lower and lower until it touched the ground. He then dropped down, stretching out his fore legs, and expired after the fifteenth minute. His heart still beat ninety-six times per minute after he had lain for three minutes quite motionless. We opened the ardmal directly, but he did not show, like the rabbit, an accumula- tion of blood in the smaller or larger veins. The blood taken from the heart was also fluid, and without any alteration in color, and congealed in a few minutes. From the same solution twenty-five drops were applied to a horse which had been wounded in the neck—the wound about an inch and a half long. Five minutes after wounding, it was feeding eagerly on hay, but sud- denly it stopped and began to smell the hay ; after the tenth minute it became restless and tried to walk; it had advanced scarcely six steps when it began to stagger and fell on its fore legs with its head on the ground; at the twelfth minute its hind legs became slightly convulsed and it fell on its side, the eyes became fixed, and it tried several times to raise its head from the ground, but without success. Its breathing was heavy, and after the twenty- second minute there was no sign of life, only the heart continued beating four minutes longer at the rate of eighty-eight strokes per minute. The opening of the animal showed the same appearances as 'with the former animals. A pig was then wounded with the same solution in the fat part, and twenty-five drops applied in the wound, but the poison had not the slightest effect upon I the animal. After twenty-five minutes a fresh wound was made in the fleshy part of the leg, and sixteen drops of the urari applied. The animal died with the same symptoms as the other animals in the sixteenth minute. From these experiments made by Professors Virchow and Miinter they conclude—1. That the urari kept dry will, even after the lapse of five years, and given in small doses, retain its intense and rapid efficiency. 2. That the urari, in accordance with the chemical experiments made, has no effect similar to that of strychnine. 3. That urari therefore, is not a tetanic poison, but, like opium, it operates by stupifying; and though we may observe convulsive