Curare preparation from Chondrodendron

Some tribes make curares from a single plant, e.g. the Nambikwara and Piaroa use only Strychnos, the Waika-Sanama may use Abuta on its own, the Lamista Quechua make a curare solely from Chondrodendron, and the Waorani produce one just from Cur area (Section 1.2.4). However, most accounts describing the preparation of curares reveal a greater complexity in... 

Alkaloids of Chondrodendron tomentosum. Butcher has examined a curare prepared by Indians of the Upper Amazon, in which the only plant used was Chondrodendron tomentosum, Ruiz and Pavon. From it he isolated the known alkaloids, d-tjochondrodendrine (p. 365), d-wochondro-... 

The arrow poison curare, when produced from Chondrodendron species (Menispermaceae), contains principally the bis-benzyltetrahydroisoquino-line alkaloid tubocurarine (see page 324). Species of Strychnos, especially S. toxifera, are employed in making loganiaceous curare, and biologically active alkaloids isolated from such preparations have been identified as a series of toxiferines, e.g. C-toxiferine (Figure 6.85). The structures appear remarkably complex, but may be envisaged as a combination of two Wieland-Gumlich... 

MENISPERMACEAE-CURARE This type of curare is prepared from the bark of Chondrodendron tomentosum Ruiz and Pavon and C. platophyllum Mers and other Chondrodendron ecies, family Menispermaceae, by extraction with boiling water followed by... 

So-called tube curares (because they are stored in bamboo tubes) often are prepared from the menispermaceous plant Chondrodendron tomentosum. These extracts are prepared and used in localized areas of the upper Amazon and Colombia. Most of the active alkaloids are bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids. The major alkaloid is tubocurarine (97), a quaternary species. 

In the early days of curare research, the poisons were classified according to the kind of receptacle into which they were put, the three main types being tube, calabash, and pot curare. Of these, tube curare gradually came to be equated with the product derived from Chondrodendron etc., while calabash curare became more or less synonymous with that prepared using Strychnos, Nowadays, the type of container is no longer diagnostic and the curare maker is just as likely to use a handy bottle. 

Chondrodendron tomentosum Ruiz et Pavon is a large liane, up to 20 m long, with yellow green flowers its stems may be round or flat. As Table 1.2 makes clear, it is the species characteristic of curares prepared in the Montana, from the Colombia/Ecuador border region as far south as Huanuco in Peru. Interestingly, the plant has a much wider distribution (140, 234) and it has been collected in Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and in Brazil (on the Rio Jurua in the western part of the State of Amazonas). 

De Lacerda [394] received bark from the same locality where Schwacke had seen the Tikuna preparing curare. He accepted Schwacke s identification of the plant as Anomospermum grandifolium. In experiments on various animals, extracts of the material were shown to have the typical paralysing activity of curare. As explained by Krukoff and Moldenke [139 p. 73], the plant concerned was probably Chondrodendron limaciifolium, i.e. Cur area tecunarum. 

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