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curare

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curare

, curari
1. black resin obtained from certain tropical South American trees, esp Chondrodendron tomentosum, acting on the motor nerves to cause muscular paralysis: used medicinally as a muscle relaxant and by South American Indians as an arrow poison
2. any of various trees of the genera Chondrodendron (family Menispermaceae) and Strychnos (family Loganiaceae) from which this resin is obtained
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

curare

[kyü′rä·rē]
(organic chemistry)
Poisonous extract from the plant Strychnos toxifera containing a mixture of alkaloids that produce paralysis of the voluntary muscles by acting on synaptic junctions; used as an adjunct to anesthesia in surgery.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Curare

 

(from Carib kurari), a mixture of condensed extracts from plants of the genera Strychnos, Chondodendron, and other South American groups.

Upon entering the blood, curare blocks the transmission of neural impulses from the motor nerves to the skeletal musculature, causing muscular relaxation. Curare was used for centuries by natives of South America as an arrow poison. It contains a large number of alkaloids of the curarine group. Curariform agents are used for therapeutic purposes.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
Curino articulates this affective angle most powerfully at the end of the first play.
In many ways, Curino constructs the Olivetti company to mirror the rich culture, warmth, and diverse intelligence with which Sacerdoti and Revel raised Camillo and Adriano.
(10) In this light, Curino's choice to embrace the favorable opinion of the company might seem somewhat uncritical, but by upholding this idyllic portrayal, she can explore a different, less confrontational, though no less cogent perspective about the origins of such exemplary intentions.
In her plays, Curino takes pains to distinguish between the industrial work culture at FIAT in Settimo Torinese and that of Olivetti in Ivrea.
Passione begins with Curino recounting the move with her seamstress mother from Torino to Settimo Torinese in FIAT housing during the 1960s.
In a reference to Pasolini's depiction of political corruption and urban ruin, Curino further stresses how industry conquered the natural world in her descriptions of Settimo Torinese, a land where not even fireflies roam since the fields where they once flocked no longer exist.
Almost ten years before Curino wrote Passione, she and her theater company, the Laboratorio Teatro Settimo, described the grotesque character of their city, which they likened to the peripheries of industrial metropolises that were also constructed for the sole purpose of corporate profit rather than public benefit.
Curino and her company here emphasize the ways in which capitalism triumphs over the needs of ordinary people.
Conversely, the balance that needs to be achieved between a company's capitalist imperatives and the alienation of workers whose needs and development are subject to company time is at the heart of Curino's rendition of the Olivetti story, and of the dominant representation of Olivetti's enlightened capitalism.
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