Curare - Curare and anaesthesia

Curare is a substance containing the alkaloid D-tubocurarine. It is obtained from one of several plants, the purified products of which are used as skeletal muscle relaxants. Curare has been superseded by a number of curare-like agents that have a similar pharmacodynamic profile but with fewer side effects. Curare is an example of a non-depolarising muscle relaxant which blocks the acetylcholine receptors on the post syn ...

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• Curare - Plants from which curare can be extracted

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Muscle relaxants are used in modern anaesthesia for many reasons, such as providing optimal operating conditions and facilitating intubation of the trachea. Before muscle relaxants, anaesthesiologists needed to use larger doses of the anaesthetic agent, such as ether or cyclopropane to achieve these aims. Such deep anaesthesia risked killing patients that were elderly or had heart conditions. On January 23, 1942, Dr. Harold Griffith and Dr. Enid Johnson gave a synthetic preparation of curare (Intracostin) to a patient undergoing an ap ...

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Curare, Curare - Curare and anaesthesia, Curare - Plants from which curare can be extracted

Read more here: » Curare: Encyclopedia II - Curare - Curare and anaesthesia