100 
The Calaguala, which is one of the simples used for many: 
years past in medicine, is also one of those vegetables which 
have not been sufficiently distinguished by the Faculty, or even 
by botanists themselves, much less by dealers and druggists. 
Tt is owing to this want of distinction that use is made in medi-- 
cine, not of the genuine Calaguala, but of the roots of other 
plants of the same genus, or of others in affinity with it, which 
never can produce exactly the same effects which are experi-. 
enced by the Indians and natives of Peru from usifig the root of 
the real Calaguala; and hence too proceed the total neglect. 
and discredit into which the Calaguala has ie MRORE, ae 
fession in Spain. , 
The cupidity of dealers.in drugs Mas Rrohebly anrrceniced Mit. : 
medical use the different species of Calaguala, now consumed: 
without. any particular use or advantage, to. remedy in some de- 
gree the injury likely to result to the public from the use of the. 
supposed Calagualas sold by the druggists. I have undertaken: 
in this Memoir to define exactly the three species of roots of 
the Calaguala, which we receive most frequently and:in | fhe elanmert. 
proporcn from the kingdom of Peru. 
_ Though it is very difficult to ascertain precisely the origin and 
nse” of the genuine Calaguala,* exclusive of that which the. 
Indians least civilized and most remote from the track of Euro- 
peans make of this reot, it may justly be inferred, that the natives- 
already used the Calaguala before the Spaniards entered those 
* Don Diego Perez Bravo, Member of the Royal Medical College of Seville, in ‘a Bota 
nico-pharmaceutical dissertation on the Calaguala, which he read in the year 1754 before the. 
Royal Society of that cify, and which merited the greatest applause, and was printed in the 
- following year, says, that according to the testimony of the most respectable naturalists of. 
Pern, the first discovery of the Calaguala, and of its medicinal use, was made in the province 
of. Caxamalea, (now called Cacamarea,) and that sie seston its use was discovered and atu 
through ee Huamanga, and other — ; 
