non-crystalline alkaloids ... Almost all curare preparations were and are complex mixtures, and many of the physiological actions attributed to the early curarizing preparations were undoubtedly due to impurities, particularly to other alkaloids present. The curare preparations are now considered to be of two main types, those from Chondrodendron or other members of the Menispermaceae family and those from Strychnos, a genus of the Loganiaceae [ now Strychnaceae ] family. Some preparations may contain alkaloids from both ... and the majority have other secondary ingredients. Hunting uses Curare was used as a paralyzing poison by many South American indigenous people. Since it was too expensive to be used in warfare, curare was mainly used for hunting. The prey was shot by arrows or blowgun darts dipped in curare, leading to asphyxiation owing to the inability of the victim's respiratory muscles to contract. In particular, the poison was used by the Island Caribs, indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, on the tips of their arrows. In addition, the Yagua people, indigenous to Colombia and northeastern Peru, commonly used these toxins via blowpipes to target prey 30 to 40 paces distant. Due to its popularity among the indigenous people as means of paralyzing prey, certain tribes would create monopolies from curare production. Thus, curare became a symbol of wealth among the indigenous populations. In 1596, Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned the arrow poison in his book Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana (which relates to his travels in Trinidad and Guayana), though the poison he described was possibly not curare. In 1780, Abbe Felix Fontana discovered that it acted on the voluntary muscles rather than the nerves and the heart. In 1832, 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 experimented with curare (woorara). He was the first to show that curare does not kill the animal and the recovery is complete if the animal's respiration is maintained artificially. In 1825, Charles Waterton described a classical experiment in which he kept a curarized female donkey alive by artificial respiration with a bellows through a tracheostomy. Waterton is also credited with bringing curare to Europe. Robert Hermann Schomburgk, who was a trained botanist, identified the vine as one of the genus Strychnos and gave it the now accepted name Strychnos