Richard C. Gill (c.1901-1958) was best known for an expedition to describe the preparation of curare, and bring back samples, in the 1930s.
[1] Unemployment in the 1920s led him to move to the Ecuadorian Andes, where he developed an interest in ethnobotany.
Given his experiences in Ecuador, he set up an expedition to obtain and describe the preparation of curare.
Because Gill was known and trusted, the people agreed to prepare curare for him in exchange for cloth, knives and other goods.
Gill noted which plants were gathered for the curare mixture and took samples of each, along with scores of others that he thought might have medical usesThe botanical specimens were sent to the New York Botanical Garden while the twenty-five pounds of crude curare were offered to Squibb for analysis.