n a toxic alkaloid found in certain tropical South American trees that is a powerful relaxant for striated muscles
curare acts by blocking cholinergic transmission at the myoneural junction
Raymond Chandler in San Francisco Chronicle Raymond Chandler wrote admiringly that Hammett "gave murder back to the kind of people who do it for a reason, not just to provide a corpse; and with means at hand, not with handwrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish."