The Flying Death: Poison, Plunder, and the Quest for a Miracle Medicine in the Amazon

A dramatic tale of explorers of the 1930s racing to find and harvest a poisonous Amazon vine, and how their work plundered local tribes and spurred the invention of new medicines.

In the fall of 1938, a young, frail American explorer set off down a river in the western Amazon in search of curare, a poison he thought might save his life. Richard Gill had learned that local tribes used curare-laced blow darts to kill animals, but it was also potentially a cure for many ailments, including his ...