107 
Therapeutic action astringent, tonic and analgesic. A well-known 
Brazilian work on Materia Medica 15 printed and published in 
Paris gives the following account of the drug :—‘ The fruits appear in 
capsules which, when ripe, are of a beautiful ruddy brown colour. 
The seeds, which are dark-coloured and almost the size of hazel nuts, 
are roasted, powdered and afterwards massed with some tapioca and 
water and are put into an oven to dry and become hard. This 
prepared guarana appears in the form of elliptical or cylindrical lobes 
of a red or ashy-grey colour with a bitter taste without appreciable 
astringency. It is hard, difficult to powder, but softens in water.’ The 
Guarani Indians 16 prepare the guarana by first washing the seeds , 
they are then lightly heated to separate the kernel from the seed 
coat, complete separation being performed by beating the seeds, 
contained in bags, with sticks. They are then crushed upon a heated 
stone and made into a paste with water, to which is sometimes added 
cacao powder or manioc flour. I his paste, moulded into cakes or 
cylinders, is then exposed to the sun or submitted for sev eral weeks 
to a gentle heat. 
Tschirch 17 states that Guarana in sticks comes over in chests of 
65 kilos. 
The cylindrical form is that in which the drug is usually seen, and 
Fig. 3 taken from portions of two such pieces (No. 4 ^ 3 ) in ^he 
Museum of Materia Medica of the University of Liverpool, gives a 
fair idea of this form. Fig. 2 shows a specimen (No. 288) of the seeds 
in the same collection. 
In addition to the forms mentioned above, guarana is occasionally 
seen in this country in other shapes, such as those of fish, animals, 
models of the plant yielding the drug, and of other plants. This is 
w ell seen in Fig. 4, taken from a specimen (No. 806) presented to 
the above Museum by Dr. H. Wolferstan Thomas. This is a mode 
of the fruit, of the plant yielding the seed, from which the beverage 
eocoa is prepared, Theobrotita Cacao , L. Dr. Thomas tells me t iat 
he has frequently seen specimens of the drug in these curious orn ^’ 
a nd that it is worth about three shillings a kilo. In 1871 it was wor 
aoout eight pence a pound, and could be bought on the Rio gF 
31 as low a rate as a penny a pound. The present market pri 
about twelve shillings a pound. 1 
The paste used in making these models is finer than t a 
