imagined, or one which from appearance could be less adapted to 

 an>thmg hke accurate medication. It has not the uniformity of 

 appearance of the bales of No. I but looks as though all ^'vvild 

 \incs" oi whatever kind might ha\e been collected and sent to 

 market in one lot. A very large proportion of the whole howexer is 

 on close examination found to be either hard, compact, and com- 

 paratively tasteless pieces, or light brown color externally, or the 

 nearly black spongy (stringy'.') pieces, such as I formerly supposed 

 to be the stems and roots of the same plant, and that the true 

 Pareira Brava. 



Specimen parcel No. 3 is the Pareira Brava of the N.Y. market 

 about 1865 to 1869, and when the black pieces appeared among 

 these about 1869, they were at first supposed to be a different 

 substance, see Amer. Jour. Pharm. Mar. 1872 p. 107. On referring 

 to the older writers however the black pieces were supposed to be 

 the true drug, and these to be stems of the same plant. 



Specimen parcel No. 4 is what I regard as the true drug, and the 

 desireable part of the plant for medicinal uses. And the small 

 internal parcel contains what I consider to be typical specimens of 

 the required part. 



Now what 1 hope for in referring this matter to Drs. Goodale or 

 Gra>, is, that Structural Botany may be able to decide first 

 whether the compact and spongy pieces of 2, 3 and 4 really belong 

 to the same plant or not, and if so whether it be as root and stem, 

 as 1 had supposed. 



"second, whether No. 1 is the same of a different plant,— or 

 what it really is. Whether the certificate amounts to anything, and 

 if it does whether this be not really Cissampelos, when we require 

 not that, but Chondodendron. — And what I most desire too, is 

 not to tax the time of either of the gentlemen too far. 



No signature — End of page 



41 



