PAREIRA 235 



PAREIRA (Pareira) 



Introduced into U. S. P. in 1840, in Secondary List. It 

 held this place in 1850, and then became official until it was 

 dropped, in 1910. 



Pareira brava, Chondrodendron tomentosum, is a 

 climbing shrub, native to Peru and Brazil and adjacent 

 sections of South America. The Portuguese mission- 

 aries of the 17th century who visited Brazil learned of 

 its reputed qualities from the natives, who under the 

 name abutua or butua valued it highly for its thera- 

 peutic virtues. The Portuguese gave it the name 

 Pareira brava, or Wild Vine, with reference to its mode of 

 growth. Its reputed medical qualities, learned from the 

 natives, were made conspicuous by Michel Amelot, 

 ambassador of Louis XIV to Lisbon, who found it in 

 that city and carried it with him to Paris. The botanist 

 Pomet (519), 1694, described the plant in his History 

 of Drugs, Paris. Lewis (382) in his Materia Medica, 

 1761, gives to pareira considerable space, citing its 

 qualities and history as follows: 



"This root is extolled by the Brazilians and Portu- 

 guese in a variety of diseases, particularly in suppres- 

 sions of urine and in nephritic and calculous complaints. 

 Geoffrey is of opinion, that its virtue consists in dis- 

 solving and attenuating tenacious juices; and reports, 

 that in sundry disorders arising from their viscidity, it 

 was found remarkably beneficial; that in nephritic 

 pains and suppressions of urine, he has often given it 

 with happy succes : that he has sometimes seen the 

 patient freed from pain almost in an instant, and a 

 plentiful discharge of urine brought on that in ulcers of 

 the kidneys and bladder, where the urine was mucous 

 and purulent and could scarcely be voided or not with- 



