A type of presump­tive test in which a substance is identified by the formation of charac­teristic crystals when a certain reagent is added. Usually, such tests are conducted using a microscope (microcrystal test). An example is the acetone-chlor-haemin test for blood.

A resin obtained from the bark of South American trees of the genera Strychnos and Chondrodendron that causes paralysis of voluntary muscle. It acts by blocking the action of the neurotransmitter  acetyl­choline at neuromuscular junctions. Curare is used as an arrow poison by South American Indians and was for­merly used as a muscle relaxant in

The susceptibility (X) of a paramagnetic substance is propor­tional to the thermodynamic temper­ature (T), i.e. x = C/T, where C is the Curie constant. A modification of this law, the Curie-Weiss law, is more generally applicable. It states that  X = C/(T- θ), where θ is the Weiss constant, a characteristic of the ma­terial. The