curare
n. any of various toxic plant extracts, especially extracts from plants of the genus Strychnos. Curare and related compounds exert their effects by blocking the activity of acetylcholine at neuromuscular junctions, resulting in paralysis. Curare has a long ethnopharmacological history among indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins, where it was applied to the tips of arrows to paralyze prey. It was brought to Europe in the 16th century by explorers of South America, but it was not introduced into clinical use until the 1930s, when it was used to treat patients with tetanus and other spastic disorders. It has also been used in experiments showing that stimulus–response associations can be formed in paralyzed animals. The development of neuromuscular blocking agents with more predictable pharmacological profiles led to the abandonment of curare as a clinical agent.