Product Name: Curare
Synonyms of Curare (CAS NO.8063-06-7): EINECS 232-511-1 ; Extractum toxiferum americanum ; Intocostrin ; Intocostrine ; Ourari ; Urari ; Woorali ; Woorari ; Wourara
CAS NO: 8063-06-7
Classification Code: Cholinergic Agents ; Cholinergic Antagonists ; Drug / Therapeutic Agent ; Human Data ; Natural Product ; Neuromuscular Agents ; Neuromuscular Blocking Agents ; Neuromuscular nondepolarizing agents ; Neurotransmitter Agents ; Nicotinic antagonists ; Peripheral Nervous System Agents

 The word Curare (CAS NO. 8063-06-7) is derived from wurari, a word from the Carib language of the Macusi Indians of Guyana. In 1596 Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned the arrow poison in his book Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana (now Guyana), however, the poison he described was not curare at all. In 1780, Abbe Felix Fontana discovered that it acted on the capability of voluntary muscles. In 1800, Alexander von Humboldt gave the first western account of how the toxin was prepared from plants by Orinoco River natives. During 1811-1812, Sir Benjamin Collins Brody was the first to report that curare does not kill the animal and the recovery is complete if the animal’s respiration is maintained artificially.  In 1825, Waterton is credited with bringing curare to Europe and Robert Hermann Schomburgk identified the vine as one of the Strychnos genus and gave it the now accepted name Strychnos toxifera. In 1850, George Harley showed that curare was effective for the treatment of tetanus and strychnine poisoning. In 1914, Henry Hallett Dale described the physiological actions of acetylcholine. After twenty-five years he showed that acetylcholine is responsible for neuromuscular transmission which can be blocked by curare.  Since the 1930s, it was being used in hospitals as a muscle relaxant. In 1939 Abram Elting Bennett used curare to modify metrazol induced convulsive therapy. The source of curare in the Amazon was first researched by Richard Evans Schultes in 1941. On January 23, 1942, Dr. Harold Griffith and Dr. Enid Johnson gave a synthetic preparation of curare to a patient undergoing an appendectomy. In 1954, Beecher and Todd suggested that the use of muscle relaxants increased death due to anesthesia nearly six fold.

A deadly human poison by an unspecified route. A deadly experimental poison by ingestion, intraperitoneal, intravenous, and subcutaneous routes. When heated to decomposition it emits highly toxic fumes.

  Curare (CAS NO.8063-06-7) can be extracted from Strychnos toxifera , Chondrodendron tomentosum .
  Curare has been used historically as a paralyzing poison by South American indigenous people. Now it can be used as a non-depolarizing muscle relaxant that blocks the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). D-tubocurarine is the main toxin of curare which occupies the same position on the receptor as ACh with an equal affinity. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor can be used as the antidote for curare poisoning like physostigmine . AChE inhibitors can raise the amount of ACh in the neuromuscular junction by blocking ACh degradation.