possible origin {ov pareira hrava. either in his publication (1872) 

 or the letter to his son (1877). 



Dr. Squibb considered Specimen parcel No. 4 "as the true 

 drug, and the desireable part of the plant for medicinal uses". 

 Although he was uncertain as to the exact botanical origin of 

 Wuc pareira hrava, he apparently considered this sample to be 

 either Cissanipelos Pareira. or the Chonchxlcndron described by 

 Hanbury (loc. cit.). Dr. Mennega, however, identified this sam- 

 ple as a species of Sciadotcnia. 1 ha\e found no reference in the 

 literature to this genus as a commercial source o{ pareira hrava, 

 although it is sometimes used in curare (Krukoff and Smith, 

 1937, 1939). Since this genus may be substituted for other 

 menispermaceous taxa in curare preparation, such as Ahuia and 

 Clionc/oclenc/ron. Squibb's parcel No. 4 ma> have been collected 

 by Brazilian natives of the Amazon basin as a saleable substitute 

 for the ''true pareira". As noted previously, different genera and 

 species of Menispermaceae, used in curare preparation through- 

 out the Amazon, often are referred to by the natives under the 

 same common name. It is very interesting that Squibb refers to 

 this lot as the drug '^commonly met with in the N.Y. market 

 from 1865 to 1869". Perhaps the apparently fraudulent nature of 

 this material can account for the "set of very feeble prepara- 

 tions", made from imports of the drug during this period, to 

 which Squibb alluded in his letter of 1877, 



More than a century later, we can now answer Dr. Squibb's 

 major queries regarding these various importations, as originally 

 presented to Goodale and Gray: (I) "whether the compact and 

 spongy pieces of 2, 3 and 4 really belong to the same plant, or 

 not", (2) "and if so whether it be as root and stem as I had 

 supposed", (3) "whether No. I is the same or a different plant,— 

 or what it really is.", (4) "Whether the certificate amounts to 

 anything", and (5) "whether this be not really Cissanipelos, when 

 we require not that, but Chond()dendron\ 



To his first question the answer is clearly "No"; these three 

 samples belong not only to different species, but also to three 

 different i^'enera of Menispermaceae (Table I). Secondly, both 

 "root and stem" appear only in parcels No. 2 {Cissatnpelos 

 Pareira: Plate 4) and No. 4 {Sciadutenia sp.; Plate 6), w hile only 



36 



