THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 20, 1872. 
S-JLG 
usually as dark red spangles with briglit green lustre, 
or when the salt is crystallized quickly, or from a 
slightly acid solution, as bright crimson needles with 
slight golden reflection. The red crystals have the 
formula C 14 H 2 K 2 (N0J 4 0 4 .3H 2 0. 
Theory. Experiment. 
H 2 0 9-81 9 09 
The formulas used in this paper are double those 
hitherto employed for clirysammic acid and its 
•compounds, and are in accordance with the view of 
Oraebe and Liebermann, who represent chrysam- 
mic acid as a derivative of antlirakinone. On this 
supposition it must be a dibasic acid, and I have 
therefore made some attempts to prepare some salts, 
the constitution of which might help to decide this 
question. At present, however, I have not been 
successful in producing acid or double salts, present¬ 
ing characters such as would entitle them to be pro¬ 
nounced definite compounds. 
NOTES ON PAREIRA. 
BY EDWARD R. SQUIBB, M.D. 
Barcira Brava is a drug which has withstood the mu¬ 
tations of therapeutics and commerce for nearly two 
hundred years, and it is a singular and significant fact, 
in view of its commercial history, that it has sustained a 
Bound reputation with many critical observers. 
It appears to have been introduced to European prac¬ 
tice from Portugal, but its sources were Mexico, tropical 
{South America, and the West Indies. Under a name so 
indefinite as “Wild Vine,” or “Bastard Vine,”—the 
translation of the name Barcira Brava, —it is hardly 
possible that the markets should have always been sup¬ 
plied from the same plant, even after its botanical source 
was determined, and hence the varying descriptions of 
different authorities may be accounted for. The writer 
has been familiar with it, both in its use and in its 
market character, for more than twenty-five years, and 
for the last half of this period supposed he knew the sub¬ 
stance with some degree of accuracy, as its appearance 
was more uniform than that of most drugs. It, however, 
never had more than a very general agreement with 
any of the descriptions given of it; and the almost uni¬ 
versal testimony of those physicians who knew it best 
was, that although very efficient in the treatment of 
chronic diseases of the mucous membranes of the urinary 
passages, it was only useful when given in doses very 
much larger than those prescribed by the books. 
It has so happened, that in the New York market the 
trade in this drug has been largely, though not exclu¬ 
sively, confined to one drug house, and its appearance, 
as met with here, is identical with occasional samples 
seen from other cities. Some ten years ago, the annual 
sales did not exceed three or four hundred pounds, and 
the price was fifteen to twenty cents. A Portuguese 
merchant, stimulated by this high price, imported a lot 
of some ten thousand pounds, and unable to sell it except 
in small lots at the expected prices, stored it for a year 
or two. This was found to be expensive management of 
so bulky an article, and the lot was finally sold at eight 
cents, and supplied the market for years. Another lot 
of about half as much shared the same fate, and fell into 
the same hands. The fate of these two lots and the glut 
of the market seems to have stopped importation entirely, 
and by 1871, when the annual sales had reached three to 
four thousand pounds, the supply became exhausted. In 
resorting to foreign markets it was found scarce, and to 
be had only in small lots, and these, on arriving here, 
w r ere sold at seventy-five cents to a dollar a pound. In 
looking critically through one of these small lots as a 
purchaser, the writer was surprised to find nearly one- 
half of it so entirely different from any hitherto seen, 
that he rejected it, and at once pronounced it a fraudu¬ 
lent adulteration or substitution, made in the interest of 
the scarcity and high price, and carefully selected out 
for purchase that only which he had seen before. Some 
specimens of this supposed fraudulent Barcira were, how¬ 
ever, taken for examination, and were found to agree 
well with some of the older descriptions. A plate given 
by Pomet in his ‘History of Drugs,' published in 1737, 
and a close examination of the structure, etc., convinced 
the writer that this was the true Pareira root, and that 
what he had heretofore seen was the stem. 
In a critical review of the descriptions of Wood and 
Bache, and Pareira, these descriptions w'ere found to 
apply to both, as nearly as such descriptions generally 
do to foreign drugs, but that they applied much better 
to the ligneous woody stem, which is comparatively in¬ 
sipid, and probably inert. The root is very much darker, 
almost black externally, and both the annular and ver¬ 
tical wrinkles are very much larger and more prominent. 
It occurs in shorter sections than the stem, and gnarled 
pieces are found eight inches to a foot in diameter. The 
texture is far less compact than that of the stem, while 
the beautiful arrangement of the consecutive rings seen 
in a cross section, which requires a glass in the compact 
stem, is well seen with the naked eye in the root. The 
sweetish and afterward bitter taste of the woody stem is 
very feeble, and even when in the finest powder, it yields 
very little extract to any menstruum. The taste of the 
root is, however, very much stronger, and yields at least 
twice as much extractive matter to the menstrua. Speci¬ 
mens illustrate the difference between the root and stem 
much better than any description, and will render fur¬ 
ther explanation unnecessary. 
It thus appears that, for some twelve or fifteen years 
past, this market has been supplied with the compara¬ 
tively inert stem, instead of the root of Pareira ; and that 
the ideas of at least one careful purchaser had become so 
fixed upon the intractable woody stems, that when the 
roots did appear, they were very nearly rejected as a 
fraudulent substitution. The importations of this year 
thus far have come from the European markets in small 
lots, and have been a mixture of root and stem, but less 
of the root than stem, and the chief object of this note is 
to attract attention to the drug, and create such a demand 
for the proper root portion, that after the present scarcity 
is over, and the market comes to be again supplied direct, 
the stem may be rejected. 
There is no doubt whatever as to the peculiar efficacy 
and utility of this drug within its legitimate sphere in 
therapeutics, and the wonder is that it has been able to 
sustain its well-tried and time-honoured reputation upon 
the feeble medicinal properties of the stem.— American 
Journal of Bharmacy. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE 
OPIUM ALKALOIDS.* 
BY C. R. A. WRIGHT, D.SC. 
Lecturer on Chemistry in St. Mary's Hospital Medical 
School. 
Part IY. 
1. On the Action of Hydriodic Acid on Morphia in 
presence of Bhosphorus. 
It has been shown in Part III. of these researchesf 
that when hydriodic acid acts on codeia in presence of 
phosphorus, a series of products are ultimately obtained 
which may be considered as formed by the following 
train of reactions :— 
* Read before the Royal Society. 
f Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xx. p. 8; Pharm. Journ. 3rd ser. 
vol. ii. p. 485. 
