GUARANA. 
559 
bj  Dr.  Theodore  von  Martius,  and  called  bj  him  Guaranine,  but 
since  shown  by  Dr.  Stenhouse  to  be  identical  with  Theine.  Gua- 
rana  contains  more  than  double  as  much  of  this  alkaloid  as 
good  black  tea,  and  five  times  as  much  as  coffee,  the  proportions 
being  5*07  per  cent,  in  Guarana,  2*13  per  cent,  in  tea,  and  0*80 
to  1*00  in  coffee.*  The  same  alkaloid  is  found  to  the  amount 
of  1*25  per  cent,  in  mate,  or  Paraguay  tea,  the  produce  of  sev- 
eral species  of  Ilex. 
It  is  rather  a  singular  coincidence  that  the  same  alkaloid 
should  prevail  in  all  the  principal  substances  employed  in  a  simi- 
lar manner  as  beverages  in  different  parts  of  the  world, — in  the 
tea  of  China  and  India,  the  coffee  of  Arabia,  the  cacao  of  Cen- 
tral America,  the  mate  of  South  America,  and  the  Guarana  of 
Brazil.  M.  Fournier  has  found  in  the  last  named  substance, 
besides  tannate  of  caffein,  the  following  principles :  gum,  starch, 
an  acrid  green  fixed  oil,  a  concrete  volatile  oil,  scarcely  soluble 
in  water,  a  peculiar  principle  not  precisely  determined,  and  tan- 
nic acid.f 
According  to  the  'Technologist,'  there  is  exported  annually 
from  the  city  of  Santarem  about  16,000  lbs.  of  this  substance, 
valued  at  eightpence  or  ninepence "  per  pound,  and  on  the  Rio 
Negro  it  has  been  sold  as  low  as  one  penny  per  pound.  Speci- 
mens were  exhibited  in  the  Brazilian  Court  of  the  Interna- 
tional Exhibition  of  1862,  made  by  the  Amazonian  Indians,  who 
prepare  it  for  their  own  use,  and  for  conveyance  to  Para,  Matto 
Grosso,  and  Goyaz.  Six  different  preparations  made  in  Vienna 
from  this  substance  were  also  shown  in  the  Austrian  Court. 
When  Guarana  was  first  employed  in  France  medicinally,  it 
sold  at  the  rate  at  from  four  shillings  to  twenty  shillings  per 
ounce,  but  has  since  gone  down  in  price.  It  is  included  amongst 
the  non-ofl5cinal  substances  of  the  '  United  States  Dispensa- 
tory.' 
Its  effects  upon  the  system  are  said  to  be  those  of  a  tonic,  but 
they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  accurately  investigated.  It  is 
habitually  employed  by  the  Indians  of  Brazil,  either  mixed  with 
*  For  an  account  of  Dr.  Stenhouse's  researches,  see  Pharm.  Journ.  let 
ser.  Vol.  XVI.  p.  212. 
t  Journ.  de  Pharm.,  April  1861,  p.  291. 
