This paper will analyze some aspects of the investigation of the South American arrow poison curare in the field of experimental physiology in the early 19th century. Through the analysis of the experimental work of two British scientists, Benjamin Collin Brodie and Charles Waterton, it will be shown how the inquiry about curare, its characteristics and its effects at that time involved a range of interdisciplinary matters, like physiology, analytical chemistry and practical medicine. At the same time, dealing with the poison as an exotic object aroused other questions which have to be investigated within the practice of colonisation as well the network of communication between European scholars and between Europe and the New World.

Especially the work of the naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton, his book Wandering in South America and as his later physiological experiments in England, furnish a powerful example of how colonial practices, racist stereotypes, experimental practices and exchange of knowledge, as well as the great influence of the Royal Society of London, all converged in the scientific investigation of curare during the early 19th century.

Finally, Brodie’s and Waterton’s attempt to save poisoned laboratory animals through artificial respiration, and their new struggle to find medical applications of curare (especially in the treatment of tetanus), will show the gradual transformation of a poison, which had earlier being defined as work of the devil and carrier of death, into a substance which may save life; a transformation which accompanies the journey of curare from the rain forest to the European laboratory.