The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-01-13
USE OF POISONED WEAPONS.
How Barbarious Nations Make Sure
of Dealing Death.
From LA Nature.

From the age of stone up to the time
when the art of killing ones neighhor
led to the discovery Of powder and fire.
arms. primitive people. owing to the
insufiiciency Of their weapons to cause
prompt death, have invented means Of
giving them poisonous qualities. Pois-
oned weapons, whether they are ar
rows, knives, lances or what not may
get their fatal properties from either
vegetable or animal poisons. The
South American Indians use curare;
the natives of India, Indo-Ch;na. Bor-
neO and the Moluccas employ (or
rather did employ the upas to poison
their weapons; the negroes of the Sou
dan and the Congo still make use of a
poison extracted from different varie-
ties Of strophanthus called m'boumou
or inc, according to the regions where
it is employed; the people Of South
Africa. the Hottentots. the Bushmon.
the Kailirs and the Akkas poison their
arrows with the venom of divers SER
pents, the cobra de "pello among 9TH
ers; certain tribes of equa torial Africa,
the N'Dris and the Banjiris, use their
arrows. after long burial in decompos-
ing corrses. to communicate blood pos-
in Oceanica the natives of New Gale
donia, the Hebridas and the Solomon
group give their enemies lockjaw by
soaking their arrows in marshes con.
tanning large quantities of the bacillus
OF the tetanuS.
The first three kinds of poison are
practically of vegetable origin, though
the local medicige men mix with their
preparations red ants. snakes venom.
toads' eyes, ETC.: they are the charac-
teristic alkalods of plants which serve
as the basis of deadly poisonous mix
ture. Curare, upas and m'boumou have
as their principal elements plants
whose species vary with the tribe, and
which all belong to the strychnine fam
lily. The three last named poisons, eX-
cept that of the South African negroes,
are of microbal origin.
What are the value, duration and ac-
tivity of these poisons? Curare keeps
indefinitely; in 1857. in the course of ex-
periments in physiology made in France
with curarized arrows brought in 1852
from equatorial America by La Con-
damine, a fowl scratched with one of
these arrows died in seven minutes;
among the Ouiteto Indians Jumps Of
curare handed down from father to
son have preserved all their poisonous
activity although covered with mold.
The same may be said for the upas,
which, kept in little sections of bamboo
for seven or eight years. retains the
same active qualities as when freshly
prepared. Malay weapons, even those
Of steel. always keep their poisonous
hot
inc claim that it will keep only a short
time before it spols. Now inc, which
is an aqueous maceration of strophan-
thus seeds, to which is added the juice
of fig or of euphorba, and gener-
ally also vipers' venom, becomes COW
cred with mold Mt the end Of q few
weeks. but Notwithstanding 1t has pre-
served all its toxic properties; guinea
pigs have been killed in few minutes
by being scratched with arrows whose
points had nodded. In fact, the vege-
table poisons used by primitive peoples
for their arrows keep indefinitely AMI
always make effective weapons.
This is not the case with poisons of
animal or microbal origin. AS we have
seen above the Bushmen, the Kaffirs
and the Akkas poison the points of
their arrows with serpent venom, es-
pecially that of the cobra; at the end
OF two or three weeks their arms have
lost all harmful quality. This is due
to a single cause. The venom OF
snakes. which is preserved indefinitely
| in alcohol, becomes covered In air with
| a peculiar mold, which has not been
| studied hitherto, and which removes
all poisonous effects from the venom.
| The poison used on the arrows of the
N'Dris of the upper Ubanghi is nothing
else than the septic vibrio (microbe of
| blood poisoning), which dies In the
| air If it is not in the presence of de-
composition. Thus these arrows are
| harmful only during a very short time.
As for the arrows Of the New Caledon-
| ians, which infect their victim with
tetanus. authorities do not agree about
| the duration of their harmful action,
although 1t is proved that the bacillus
| Of Nicolaier cannot live except in a
very moist medium and, together with
other bacilli, harmless or otherwise
such as the septic bacillus. which, as
we have seen, dies in a short time.
Thus in all cases the poisoned arrows
| Of the races that make use of vegetable
alkaloids are much more to be feared
than those of the tribes that employ
poisons of animal or microbial origin.
| y