2G 



MENISPERMACE^. 



an ashy hue. The flowers are unisexual, racemose, minute, produced 

 either from the young shoots or from the woody stems. The fruits 

 are | of an inch long, oval, black and much resembling grapes in form 

 and arrangement.^ 



The plant grows in Peru and Brazil, — in the latter country in the 

 neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, where it occurs in some abundance 

 on the range of hills separating the Copacabana from the basin of the 

 Rio de Janeiro. It is also found about San Sebastian further south. 



History — The Portuguese missionaries who visited Brazil in the 

 l7th century became acquainted with a root known to the natives as 

 Abutua or Butua, which was regarded as possessing great virtues. As 

 the plant affording it was a tall climbing shrub with large, simple, 

 long-stalked leaves, and boi-e bunches of oval berries resembling grapes, 

 the Portuguese gave it the name of Parreira brava or Wild Vine. 



The root was brought to Lisbon where its reputed medicinal powers 

 attracted the notice of many persons, and among others of Michel 

 Amelot, ambassador of Louis XIV., who took back some of it when he 

 returned to Paris in 1688. Specimens of the drug also reached the 

 botanist Tournefort, and one presented by him to Pomet was figured 

 and described by the latter in 1694.^ The drug was again brought to 

 Paris by Louis-Raulin Rouille, the successor to Amelot at Lisbon, 

 tocrether with a memoir detailing its numerous virtues. 



Specimens obtained in Brazil by a naval officer named De la Mare in 

 the early part of the last century, were laid before the French Academy, 

 which body requested a report upon them from Geoffroy, professor of 

 medicine and pharmacy in the College of France, who was already 

 somewhat acquainted with the new medicine. He reported many 

 favourable trials in cases of inflammations of the bladder and suppres- 

 sion of urine.* The drug was a favourite remedy of Helvetius,^ physi- 

 cian to Louis XIV. and Louis XV., who administered it for years with 

 great success. 



Both Geoffroy and Helvetius were in frequent correspondence with 

 Sloane^ who received from the former as well as from other sources 

 specimens of Pareira Brava, which are still in the British Museum and 

 have enabled us fully to identify the drug as the root of Chondodendron 

 tomentosum. 



Several other plants of the order Menispei'Tnacece have stems or roots 

 employed in South America in the same manner as Clwndodendron. 

 Pomet had heard of two varieties of Pareira Brava, and two were 

 known to Geoffroy.® Lochner of Niirnberg who published a treatise 

 on Pareira Brava in 1719^ brought forward a plant of Eastern Africa 

 figured in 1675 by Zanoni,® and supposed to be the mother-plant of the 



1 See Pharm. Joum. Aug. 2, 1873. 83 ; 

 Yearbook, 1873. 28 ; Am. Joum. of 

 Pharm. Oct. 1, 1873. fig. 3; Hanhury 

 Science Papers. 382. 



2 Hist, dea Drog. Paris, 1694. part i. 

 livre 2. cap. 14. 



8 Hist, de VAcad. ray. des Sciences, 

 anne^ 1710. 56. 



* Trait6 des maladies les plus friquentes 

 et des reiiiMes sp^cijiques pour les guirir, 

 Paris, 1703. 98. 



5 In the volumes of Sloane MSS. No. 

 4045 and 3322 contained in the British 

 Museum, are a great many letters to Sloane 

 from Etienne-Fran9ois Geoffroy and from 

 his younger brother Claude-Joseph, dating 

 1699 to 1744. 



6 Tract, de Mat. Med. ii. (1741) 21—25. 

 "^ Schediasma de Parreira Brava, 1719. 



(ed. 2. auctior.) 

 8 Istoria Botanica, 1675. 59. fig. 22. 



