386 I'AREIRA BKAVA. 



1873. collection of Materia Medica, now in the British Museum, there 

 are many well-preserved specimens of the drug obtained from 

 different persons and at different periods, and all of one kind ; 

 and in his voluminous manuscript catalogues and his other 

 papers are entries throwing light on their origin. 



The first notice I have found is a letter from Lisbon, dated 

 A.D. 1699. October 17th, 1699, addressed by Joseph Geston to John Ellis, 1 

 in which the writer says : 



" By order of my brother, W m< Geston, I send you here in- 

 closed six sticks of Pareira Bravo, or Farm Brava. The use of 

 it, I am informed, is in powder, one scruple, and to the strongest 

 patient one octave [drachm] in Rhenish wine. . . . Its vertues 

 are for the stone, gravell, obstruction of the urine, and for the 

 colick, a very excellent remedy." 



Though this letter is not addressed to Sloane, nor is he men- 

 tioned in it, yet from its occurrence among his correspondence 

 there can be no doubt that the specimens to which it relates 

 were intended for him. 



The entries in his manuscript catalogues, which are in his own 

 handwriting, are these : 



Sloane Maim- " 652. Pareira Brava. From Brasile, pretended to be good 



for the stone" 



" 4039. Pareira Brava. A root used in the stone." 



" 6708. The Pareira Brava, of a brown colour, from Brazil, 



said to be the best sort. From Mons r> Geoffrey. 



10471. Sev lh specimens of the Pareira Brava, from Lisbon, 



accounted a great remedy in suppression of water and the 



stone, according to Mons r . Geoffrey, the Ambitua or Butua 



of Zanoni. From Dr. Fuller, Sevenoaks." 



In 1866, I applied to my friend Theodor Peckolt, druggist, of 

 Rio de Janeiro, then residing at Cantagallo in the same province, 

 on the subject of Pareira Brava, in consequence of which I 

 received from him specimens of two plants, the one marked 

 Butua or Pareira Brava legitima, and other Butinha or Pareira 

 Brava miuda (literally small Pareira Brava), together with a 

 large dried entire plant of the former. The herbarium specimens 

 of these plants presented no characters by which I could 

 1 Sloane MS., 4045, fol. 240. 



