STRANGE POISON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 789, 3 September 1954, Page 7

STRANGE POISON

URARE," says Dr. Harry Collier, "is a strange poison that has fascinated many unusual men." It has fascinated Dr. Collier .so much since he began his research on it in 1946, that last year he wrote a radio feature about it for the BBC. This programme-The Story of Curare-will start the rounds of National stations with a broadcast from 4YA at 10.0 p.m. on Thursday, September 9. Curare was given to the world. by the South American Indians, who found it just what they wanted for their hunting. It’s so potent when it enters the bloodstream that any bird or animal wounded by an_ arrow tipped with it is almost certain to be brought down. Yet the hunter can eat his kill and give it to his children, because curare is harmless when taken by mouth. It’s better than a bullet, too. It makes no sound, and since the poison paralyses the vocal muscles the victim does not cry out. What use is such a poison to civilised man? Until quite recently he had no real use for it; but in 1942 two anaesthetists in Montreal used curare for the first time in surgical operations, and today it is used more and more to relax the muscles of patients during critical operations. This muscular relaxation is at times so advantageous to both surgeon and patient that the introduction of curare has been described as "a milestone in anaesthesia." But exploration of the secrets of curare didn’t begin in 1942 — in fact, two men who were specially associated with its development in Britain were

born in the 18th Century. Edward Bancroft, who was born in America, practised medicine in Guiana where Indians gave him some curare, and a recipe of how they made it. In England he published an account of it and helped Sir Benjamin Brodie carry out some of the earliest experiments with it. Bancroft was a typical man of the 18th Century in his varied career. He was a novelist and free-thinker. During the American War of Independence he acted first as agent of the colonists in Europe and then turned King’s Evidence for the British Government. He later took up calico printing and dyeing and became a successful business man. Charles Waterton was a _ Yorkshireman who lived for some vears in Demerara, British Guiana. He explored the jungle and brought back to England some curare which he described as: "The real original Wourali-poison, made and used by the Indians of Macoushia. I took it myself from the gourd in which they had prepared it. They were pointing their arrows at the time and were poisoning their tips with it, preparatory for going in quest of game. This was in the year of Our Lord 1812, far away in the wilds of Guiana." : Dr. Collier, introducing his programme in the Radio Times, tells the touching story of Waterton’s she-ass, which he inoculated with the poison so that the animal died "apparently in ten minutes," but Waterton saved her from "final dissolution" by blowing air into her lungs from bellows for some hours. She was then sent to his Yorkshire

estate, much cherished, and lived another twenty-five: years. She went by the name of Wouralia. In 1899 a Not~tingham. doctor’ successfully~ applied artificial respiration for one and a half hours to a maid servant who accidentally scratched her arm on sOme curaretipped trophy arrows while dusting. A modern version of artificial respiration is today used when a. patient is given curare during anaesthesia. Some of the scenes in the BBC’s programme The Story of Curare are set in the South American jungle. with the early explorers: others in our own time, when after four hundred and fifty years of exploration and experiment the drug’s power has been controlled. The programme, which includ@és __ detailed glimpses of a hospital operating theatre at work, culminates in’ a dramatised account of four anaesthetists experimenting on themselves with a new synthetic curare.