300  Elixir  of  Paullinia  or  Guarana. 
The  sugar-coated  pill,  the  palatable  ^'  elixir,"  the  nicely-flavored 
mixture,  may  be  of  little  account  to  the  well,  but  to  the  sick  they  are, 
I  can  assure  my  readers,  a  precious  boon. 
In  a  future  paper  I  shall  make  some  further  comments  upon  the 
question  of  "  Elixirs  "  and  "  Elegant  Pharmacy,"  and  the  interest  of 
medicine  and  pharmacy  involved  in  the  question. 
Philadelphia,  May,  1875. 
ELIXIR  OF  PAULLINIA  OR  GUARANA. 
BY  GEORGE  W.  KENNEDY,  PH.  G. 
Guarana,  which  is  prepared  from  Paullinia  sorbilis.^  derives  its  name 
from  a  tribe  of  aborigines,  called  "  Guaranis,"  who,  it  is  said,  used  it 
as  a  corrigent  of  their  vegetable  diet.  Within  the  last  few  years  it  has 
received  considerable  reputation  for  the  cure  of  the  various  forms  of 
headache,  and  the  credit  it  has  attained  appears  to  be  confined  to  a  few 
places.  There  are  but  few  physicians  and  apothecaries  who  know  more 
of  it  than  its  name.  I  believe  it  is  better  known  in  the  Southern  and 
Western  States  than  in  other  sections  of  the  country.  My  attention 
was  first  attracted  to  it  six  or  seven  years  ago  in  one  of  our  Southern 
cities,  where  the  writer  then  resided,  and  where  it  was  used  by  the  peo- 
ple for  the  cure  of  nervous  and  sick-headaches  and  other  nervous  dis- 
orders, with  good  success,  the  residents  there  regarding  it  as  a  specific 
for  those  afilictions.  Unfortunately,  the  apothecaries  were  forced  to 
sell  what  was  called  guarana,  put  up  as  a  proprietary  article  by  a  firm 
known  by  the  name  of  Grimault  &  Co.,  P<?m,  France.,  and  sold  at  the 
enormous  price  of  a  J1.50  per  box,  each  box  containing  about  a  dozen 
small  powders.  At  that  time  guarana  was  very  scarce  in  the  American 
market,  or,  in  all  probability,  it  would  have  been  sold  in  a  different 
shape,  and  not  as  a  proprietary  article. 
Of  late  years,  guarana  or  paullinia  has  been  more  plentiful,  larger 
quantities  of  it  have  been  imported,  owing  to  the  increasing  demand  ; 
but  still  Grimault  &  Co.'s  guarana  sells  at  the  exorbitant  price  of 
$1.00  per  box.  If  there  is  still  the  same  demand  South  for  this  pro- 
prietary article  as  there  formerly  was,  pharmacists  should  discounten- 
ance and  discourage  its  sale,  and  introduce,  if  possible,  the  commercial 
Paullinia. 
When  the  writer  first  became  acquainted  with  it,  as  possessing  med- 
icinal properties,  it  was  used  by  a  class  of  people  who  knew  the  dose, 
