he lungs are
artificially kept in activity for several hours, the poison will be
rejected by natural means, and no bad consequences will ensue. Of late
the principal objection to the employment of the urary in medicine--its
unequal strength--has been completely overcome by the effective
alkaloid--the curarin--being extracted. This is about twenty times as
powerful as the urary, and has been used successfully in the treatment
of tetanus. The Indians shoot birds and monkeys, which they wish to
tame, with very weak curare, rousing them from the lethargy which
overpowers them with large doses of salt or sugar-juice; and this
treatment is said to be very effective, also, in the reduction of their
wildness....

The gurana, prepared from the fruit of the _Paullinia sorbilis_, is a
hard, chocolate-brown mass, of a slightly bitter taste, and of no smell
whatever. It is usually sold in cylindric pieces of from ten inches to a
foot in length, in which the half-bruised almond-like seeds are still
distinguishable; the more homogeneous and the harder the mass, the
better is its quality. To render it eatable, or rather drinkable, it is
rasped as fine as possible on the rough, bony roof of the mouth of the
_Sudis gigas_ (pira-rucu), and mixed with a little sugar and water. A
teaspoonful in a cup of warm water is said to be an excellent remedy in
slight attacks of ague.

The taste of this beverage, reminding one slightly of almonds, is very
palatable; still, it scarcely accounts for the passionate liking
entertained for it by the inhabitants of the greater part of South
America. It must be the stimulating effects of the paullinin it contains
(an alkaloid like caffeine and theine) that render it so indispensable
to those who have been accustomed to it. All the boats that come lightly
freighted with ipecacuanha and deer- or tiger-hides, from Mato Grosso
down the Arinos and the Tapajoz, in face of the considerable cataracts
and rapids of the latter, take their full loads of guarana at Santarem;
and the heavy boats of the Madeira also convey large quantities of it to
Bolivia; for at Cuyaba, as well as at Santa Cruz de la Sierra and
Cochabamba, there are many who cannot do without their guarana, for
which they often have to pay thirty francs the pound, and who prefer all
the rigors of fasting to abstinence from their favorite beverage. On the
other hand, the mestizo population on the Amazon, where it is prepared
on a large scale by the hal