Botanical Musetm Leaflets 

 Winter 1983 



Vol. 29, No. I 



PAREIRA BRA VA: 19TH CENTURY NOTES AND 



COMIMERCTAL SAMPLES FROM 



E. R. SQIIBB, M.D. 



Phillip M. Ri ry* 



Radix fareirae bravae C^root of pareira hrava'*) was first 

 introduced to Europe b\ the Portuguese, on the basis of its 

 indigenous use in Brazil as a virtual panacea with diuretic, 

 lithontriptic, vuhierary, stomachic, cordial and alexipharmic 

 properties (Pomet, 1692; Squibb, 1872 and Hanbury, 1873). 

 According to Hanbury (loc. cit.) the first published account and 

 illustration of radix parcirae hravac appeared in 1692, in 

 Pomet's Histoire ties Drogues. Apparently, Pomet's description 

 and illustration provided the typology (ov pareira hrava, upon 

 which the authentication of commercial samples depended dur- 

 ing the next two centuries. 



In 1872, Edward R. Squibb, M.D., praised the utility of 

 pareira hrava in the treatment of ''chronic diseases of the 

 mucous membranes of the urinary passages'', referring to it as "a 

 drug which has withstood the mutations of therapeutics and 

 commerce for nearly two hundred years." Squibb cautiously 

 avoided the taxonomic debate o\er the botanical origin of the 

 drug, and wisely warned his medical and pharmaceutical col- 

 leagues that ''Under a name so indefinite as 'wild vine' or 'bas- 

 tard vine' — the translation of the name Pareira Brava,— 

 hardly possible that the markets should have always been supp- 

 lied from the same plant, even after its botanical source was 

 determined, and hence the varying descriptions of different 

 authorities may be accounted for." 



Dr. Squibb also noted that in order to be efficacious, the 

 pareira hrava of the New York market required administration 

 in "doses very much larger than those prescribed by the books." 



It is 



*Bailcy-Wctmorc Laboratory ot IMant Anatomy and Morpholog\. HotaniL'al Museum. 

 Harvard University. Cambridge, MA 02138. 



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