Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury.

Date:: 1879

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$fibrous substance. The taste is bitter, well marked but not persistent. The drug has no particular odour. Its aqueous decoction is turned inky bluish-black, by tincture of iodine. The aerial stems especially differ by enclosing a small but well- defined pith. Microscopic Structure—The most interesting character consists in the arrangement rather than in the peculiarity of the tissues com- posing this drug. The wavy light-coloured lines already mentioned are built up partly of sclerenchymatous cells. The other portions of the parenchyme are loaded with large starch granules, which are much less abundant in the stem. Chemical Composition—From the examination of this drug made by one of us in I860,1 it was shown that the bitter principle is the same as that discovered in 1839 by Wiggers in the drug hereafter described as Common False Pareira Brava, and named by him Pelosine. It was further pointed out that this body possesses the chemical pro- perties of the Bibirine of Greenheart bark and of the Buxine obtained by Walz from the bark of Buxus sempervirens L. It was also obtained on the same occasion (1869) from the stems and roots of Gissampelos Pareira L. collected in Jamaica ; but from both drugs in the very small proportion of about \ per cent. Whether to Buxine (for by this name rather than Pelosine it should be designated) is due the medicinal power of the drug may well be doubted. No further chemical examination of true Pareira Brava has been made. Uses—The medicine is prescribed in chronic catarrhal affections of the bladder and in calculus. From its extensive use in Brazil2 it seems deserving of trial in other complaints. Helvetius used to give it in substance, which in 5-grain doses was taken in infusion made with boiling water from the powdered root and not strained. Substitutes—We have already pointed out how the name Pareira Brava has been applied to several other drugs than that described in the foregoing pages. We shall now briefly notice the more important. 1. Steins and roots of Gissampelos Pareira L.—Owing to the diffi- culty of obtaining good Pareira Brava in the London market, although this plant is very widely diffused over all the tropical regions of both hemispheres, the firm of which one of us was formerly a member (Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, Lombard Street) caused to be collected in Jamaica, under the superintendence of Mr. N. Wilson, of the Bath Botanical Gardens, the stems and root of Gissampelos Pareira L., of which it imported in 1866-67-68 about 300 lb. It was found impracticable to obtain the root per se; and the greater bulk of the drug consisted of long cylindrical stems,3 many of which had been decumbent and had thrown out rootlets at the joints. They had very 1 Ne.ites Jahrb. f. Pharm. xxxi. (1S69) 257 ; Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 192. 2 “ Presentamente [Abutua] e reputada diaphoretica, diureticae emenagoga, e usada interiormente na dose de duas a quatro oitavas para uma libra de infusao ou cozi- mento, nas febrcs intermittentes, liydro- pisias, o suspensao de locliios.”— Lang- gaard, Dic.cionario de Medicina domcslica e popular, Rio de Janeiro, i. (1865) 17. 3 Figured, together with the plant, in Bentley and Trnneu, Medic. Plante, part 9 (1S76).$