Curare — the Orinoco arrow poison, described in 1745 and used in surgery from 1942

The fullest early account of curare is chapter XII of the second tome of Gumilla's Orinoco ilustrado (Madrid, 1745). It records what the poison did, how it was made and what it was made at: a monopoly held by one nation, a test on a shot monkey with the body opened afterwards, the fact that meat killed with it was eaten without harm, and old women set to the pots until the vapour killed them. Two centuries later the same substance became the first surgical muscle relaxant.