Am.  Tour.  Pharm. ) 
Sept.,  1921.  f 
Muira-Puama. 
625 
MUIRA-PUAMA* 
By  Heber  W.  Youngken,  Ph.D. 
This  drug,  concerning  which  comparatively  little  has  been  writ- 
ten, has  been  employed  in  Brazil  and  France  in  the  form  of  fluidex- 
tract  and  other  preparations  for  the  treatment  of  various  nervous  dis- 
orders. In  recent  years  it  has  been  shipped  from  Para  and  Rio  de 
Janeiro,  Brazil,  to  manufacturing  pharmaceutical  houses  in  the  United 
States,  where  it  is  made  into  a  fluidextract,  which  is  then  sent  back 
to  Brazil,  there  being  no  particular  demand  for  it  here. 
The  writer,  being  interested  in  the  botanical  source  and  ana- 
tomy of  this  new  article,  procured  a  good-sized  sample  from  one  of 
Philadelphia's  manufacturing  pharmaceutical  houses.  This  was  com- 
pared both  as  to  physical  and  microscopical  features  with  two  sam- 
ples of  a  root  also  labeled  "Muira-puama,"  in  the  crude  drug  col- 
lections of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  and  Science.  The 
three  specimens  revealed  a  similar  structure  and  so  were  undoubtedly 
of  the  same  botanical  source.  On  the  label  of  one  of  the  specimen 
jars  containing  the  root  appeared  the  botanical  origin,  "Liriosma 
ovata  Miers." 
DESCRIPTION  OF  PLANT. 
Lirosma  ovata  Miers1  is  a  small  tree  indigenous  to  Brazil  and 
belongs  to  the  Olive  family.  Its  leaves  are  short,  petiolate,  glab- 
rous, up  to  three  inches  long  and  two  inches  broad,  broadly  ovate, 
attenuated  at  the  summit,  slightly  reflexed  along  the  margin ;  upper 
surface  light  green,  lowjsr  surface  "dark  brown;  venation  pinnate- 
reticulate,  more  conspicuous  on  the  upper  than  the  lower  surface; 
midrib  pubescent  above,  smooth  below.  Its  inflorescences  consist 
of  short  axillary  racemes,  each  of  four  to  six  flowers. 
DESCRIPTION  OF  ROOT. 
Conical,  nearly  straight,  tapering  to  a  small  point,  from  one- 
half  to  one  and  one-half  feet  in  length  and  from  one-eighth  to  one 
and  one-half  inches  in  diameter;  externally  light-brown  to  grayish- 
brown,  faintly  longitudinally  striated  and  beset  with  short  sharp 
projections,  which  occasionally  unite  two  or  more  roots;  fracture 
strongly  tough  and  fibrous;  internally  light-brown  exhibiting  a  thin 
bark  and  broad  wood;  odor  faint;  taste  slightly  saline  and  acrid. 
*Presented  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  Philadelphia  Pa.,  June  10,  1921. 
