From Michael Foster [26 June 1871]1
Blackheath
Monday Ev.
My dear Sir
I have written to my man at Cambridge to send you by post a bottle of urari of which please use as much as you want—& when you have quite done with it I will have the remainder back.2 I have two stocks—one Sharpey3 gave me—gathered by Dr. Dalton,4—the other purchased in Leipzig— I don’t know which will reach you because I don’t quite know which my man will lay his hands upon.
As to doze I hardly know what to say— Urari does not neutralize strychnia but prevents the muscular manifestations of the action of strychnia— Hence any dose sufficient to paralyse completely the motor nerves (and for a frog I generally take a drop of two of a solution made by mixing thus much 0 in about ȝj5 of water) will negative the action of almost any qty of strychnia great or small. The urari is eliminated slowly so that by the time the action of even a small dose of urari is passing off, the effect of a large dose of strychnia has also passed away.6
I think I am right in saying that in the absence of histologically distinct nervous elements urari seems inert— ex gr.7 amoebae go their ways as usual in even strong solutions of it—& protoplasm generally seems to be unaffected by it— I believe these are Kühne’s results.8
It is extremely soluble in cold water—& the clear filtrate possesses all the virtues.
Believe me | Yours ever truly | M. Foster
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Kühne, Wilhelm Friedrich. 1860. Ueber die Wirkung des amerikanischen Pfeilgiftes. Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftliche Medicin 1860: 477–517.
Summary
Has arranged to send CD a bottle of urari [curare]. Describes its effect with strychnine.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7834
- From
- Michael Foster
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Blackheath
- Source of text
- DAR 58.1: 141–2
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7834,” accessed on 13 December 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7834.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19