Chemical studies on medicinal Myristicaceae from Amazonia.

Drugs from Myristicaceae species are used in the Amazon region as hallucinogens and arrow poisons, as well as for the healing of infected wounds. The former effects were attributed by Schultes and Holmstedt to tryptamines and carbolines. The latter activity is now tentatively ascribed to pterocarpans and neolignans. This, and a proposal that the red colour of the bark resins may be due to oxidative dimers of flavans, are based on a review of the chemistry of Amazonian Myristicaceae.