The Use of Curare in Anesthesia

Abstract

FOR the past few centuries, curare has been dismissed lightly as being synonymous with the generic name of several poisons of certain South American Indians, but investigation of its pharmacologic action and clinical application in the past decade has shown this drug to hold great promise to the anesthesiologist. The first descriptions of this so-called arrow poison were brought back to the civilized world by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595 following his journey to Guiana and up the Orinoco.1 Because of the variable source and potency of the drug and because of the toxic effects due to the impurities . . .