Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On pareira brava / by Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![the Royal Society, an active collector of objects of natural history of every kind, some of whose letters are also in the Sloanian collection, thus wrote, Dec. 11th, 1716, to Colonel Worslcy, His Majesty s Envoy at Lisbon :— <i > 7. am glad to hear ye Brasil ffleet is safely « arrived,'wch I hope has brought some materialls for my « succeeding Collectaneas, and amongst them nothing can « be more welcome than specimens of ye leaves and fruit « 0f -ye Ipecacuanha, Pareira Brava, Balsam Capevse ami “ ye true Brasile and Brasiletto woods, all which will be “ very acceptable discoveries. ... * The first author to give an account in print of Pareira Brava seems to be Pomet, whose Histoire des Drogues was completed in 1692.+ He describes the drug as then recently seen in Paris, and he figures the specimen given him by Tournefort. Geoffrey, in his excellent Tractatus de Materia Medica,\ a work lie did not live to complete, calls the drug by its Brazilian name of Butua, or Pareira Brava 0*1’ the Portuguese, and describes it as a root, woody, hard, contorted, externally of dark colour, rough, with many wrinkles, some long, some running round it transversely, like that of Thymelcea [Daphne Gnidium L.], internally of a dull, yellowish hue, knit together, as it were, with many woody fibres, so that when cut transversely it exhibits several concentric circles, intersected by numerous rays of fibres pass- ing from the centre to the circumference ; inodorous, somewhat bitter, with a certain degree of sweetness like liquorice, as thick as the finger, or sometimes as a child’s arm. He adds that the Brazilians and Por- tuguese most highly extol its virtues as a diuretic, lithontriptic, vulnerary, stomachic, cordial, and alexi- pharmic,§ and, in fact, regard it as a complete panacea. The question now arises—Can the drug which was introduced with so much of laudation be clearly identified ? As already stated, Pomet has figured it, and his engraving is excellent. But Sloane has left us better materials. In his collection of materia medica, now in the British Museum, there are many well-pre- served specimens of the drug obtained from different persons and at different periods, and all of one kind; and in his voluminous manuscript catalogues and his other papers, are entries throwing light on their origin. The first notice I have found is a letter from Lisbon, dated October 17th 1699, addressed by Joseph Geston to John Ellis,|| in which the writer says it. But it was not published until 1694. t Tom. II. (1741) 21. § Bill judiciously remarks that this is going too far in !<8 ^ai-8ei’ an , omitting some of its real virtues. “ it, is ^ certainly a diuretic,n says he, “of no inferior kind, and ,< d0”e ?reat service in nephritic cases ; and in plurisies and qumzies has been attenrWl udtn mom on/mnoa Ihn». <( “ By order of my brother, Wm- Geston, I send you “ here inclosed six sticks of Pareira Brava, or Parra * Sloane MS., 3340, p. 306. d i}SJ)roved by the letters of approbation which precede : j . V *7 *** irepiuiiu, LtLtJUCJ , IUIU 1U [)iUri8ieS ii A, 1 guinzies has been attended with more success than i a mos any medicine we know of singly. In suppressions “ . unne scarce anything is more efficacious or more in- “ •a“eT1,.n 1^.S efr°ct, but it is folly to infer from this “ will d^solve the stone. . . . In cases of ulce- “ ln„f \ °i Kldn.°r or bladder, when the urine is puru- “ n • r (!lIU V01ded with groat difficulty, there is scarce any- thm root .... .. - ,.,i„ nf niff “ Brava. The use of it, I am informed, is in powd “ one scruple, and to the strongest patient one octa “ [drachm] in Rhenish wine. . , . Its vertues are; “ the stone, grave'll, obstruction of the urine, and for t “ colick,—a very excellent remedy.” Though this letter is not addressed to Sloane, i is he mentioned in it, yet from its occurrence amo his correspondence there can be no doubt that t specimens to which it relates were intended him. The entries in his manuscript catalogues, which in his own handwriting, are these : — “652. Pareira Brava.—From Brasile, preteni “ to be good for the stone.” “ 4039. Pareira Brava.—A root used in the ston “ 6708. The Pareira Brava, of a brown cole “ from Brazil, said to be the best sort.—From Moi “ Geoffrey.” “10471. Sev'l specimens of the Pareira Bra “ from Lisbon, accounted a great remedy in supp] “ sion of water and the stone,—according to MfflJ “ Geoffrey, the Ambitua or Butua of Zanoni —Fr “ Dr. Fuller, Sevenoaks.” In 1866, I applied to my friend Theodor Peck druggist, of Rio de Janeiro, then residing at Can gallo in the same province, on the subject of Pare Brava, in consequence of which I received from h specimens of two plants, the one marked Butua Pareira Brava legitim,a, the other Butinha or Parc Brava miucla (literally small Pareira Brava), toget with a large dried entire plant of the former. r herbarium specimens of these plants presented characters by which I could distinguish them as t species ; and Mr. Peckolt subsequently informed that their difference consists chiefly in habit, i that the first or legitimate Pereira Brava is found much drier situations than the small sort or Pere Brava, miuda. I have also received specimens from my frit Mr. J. Correa de Mello of Campinas, marked Pam\ Brava pequena (small Pareira Brava) or Abuta quena, and others labelled Leaves of the plant } ducing Pareira Brava, all of which seem referable i Mr. Peckolt’s plant. Mr. Correa de Mello has li wise sent me the dried root, and I have also ceived the root as supplied by a drug house of . de Janeiro. Within the last few weeks two specimens of rc bearing some leaves, marked respectively Pan Brava, large leaf, and Pareira Brava, small leaf, h been presented to the Pharmaceutical Society as as to myself by Mr. G. B. Francis of the firm Hearon, Squire, and Francis. Between these 1 sorts I fail to recognize any difference. The roots of Mr. Peckolt’s Pareira Brava legtU those sent me by Mr. Correa de Mello, and tli received from Mr. Francis, completely agree w Sloane’s specimens, as well as with Pom figure. As to the plant, I identify it with Chondodendn tomentosuni of Ruiz et Pavon, with an auther specimen of which in the herbarium of the Bnt Museum I have compared it. It is the Goccv * Mr. Miers (Contributions to Botany, IH-, 30/) 1 tends for this name being written ChondTodendronasw in accordance with its derivation from xirtipos. .](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22367378_0002.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
