De l'existence en Afrique Centrale d'un poison de flèche curarisant, issu du Strychnos usambarensis GILG

During a collecting trip of some medicinal and poisonous plants in Eastern Rwanda, the author observed the use of a hunting poison prepared from Strychnos usambarensis by Banyambo (small tribe living along Akagera river on the border between Rwanda and Tanzania). He could get the raw poison and arrows from these people. The author has shown the presence of curarizing properties caused by quaternary alkaloids located in barks of Strychnos usambarensis roots. This is an entirely new fact which allows us to assure the existence of a curare in Africa. Indeed BISSET and LEEUWENBERG ( Lloydia, 1968,31, p208-222) reviewed Strychnos sp. used in central Africa as ordeal and arrow poisons and they did not report the use by the natives of a curarizing arrow-poison.