Curare
- Date
- before 1516 · confidence low
- Place
- Upper Orinoco, Amazonas, Venezuela
- Credited to
- Peoples of Amazonia and the Guianas
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Hunting poison made from lianas (Chondrodendron, Strychnos) that paralyses skeletal muscle without tainting the meat. Its active principle, tubocurarine, introduced muscle relaxation into anaesthesia in 1942.
Mentioned by Pedro Mártir de Anglería (1516); its prehispanic antiquity is beyond doubt but cannot be dated.
What it led to
- hunting with blowguns
- Claude Bernard's studies of the motor end-plate (1850)
- muscle relaxants in surgery