Jaborandi

[JABORANDI. NATURAL ORDER, RUTACEiE.]

Jaborandi, one of the most recent additions to the materia medica, is a native of Brazil. Its source is not positively known and the correctness of the name is a matter of some doubt, eminent botanists asserting that the name jaborandi applies to a number of varieties belonging to the same family. It is presumed, however, to be the pilocarpus pinnatus. The leaves are oval, elongated, a little more than one inch in length, about one-third of an inch in width, of a bright green color, of a warm aromatic taste, of an odor said to resemble that of hay or of laurel.

The leaves and bark are the officinal part of the plant. Pilo- carpi represents the concentrated active principle. South American Indians use it to antidote the bite of certain poisonous snakes.

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Although jaborandi has been prominent before the medical public only since the year 1874, if is a favorite remedy with the physio- logical schools on account of its prompt diaphoretic action.

An infusion of from one drachm to one drachm and a half of jaborandi in water produces in an adult a most copious perspiration in from ten to twenty minutes. This is preceded by a flushing of the face and accompanied by a profuse flow of saliva, continuing from two to five and, in rare cases, more hours. In some persons there is also a free secretion from the bronchial tubes, the nose dis- charges freely, the secretion of tears is greatly stimulated and a watery diarrhoea sets in. Usually, nausea and even vomiting are present, and the patient is left in a state of great exhaustion after the sweating.

It has been stated that the perspiration in some cases amounts to fifteen ounces. A series of careful analyses, by Eobin, shows an excess of chlorides, a remarkable excess of urea, which amounts to more than five times its normal proportion, and very minute amounts of carbonates and phosphates. M. Carville states that the profuse salivation of jaborandi is due to the direct action upon the salivary glands or upon the nerve-peripheries which enter the glands.

The saliva also contains an excess, though small, of urea.

It is asserted by some authors that there is an increase of from one to two degrees F. in the temperature of the body during the early stage of sweating, followed by a corresponding fall. Kinger and Kiegel, both of whom have investigated the action of the drug with much care, have failed to observe this, except in one case noted by Ringer.

Jaborandi primarily diminishes the urinary secretion, but second- arily increases it. The percentage of urea is not materially affected, and the primary diminution and the subsequent increase of the amount of urine voided are in sirch exact proportion that, according to M. Kobin, the drug does not increase combustion in the animal economy.

Thirst usually exists during the sweating and for some time after it has ceased. The appetite is not materially affected ; in exceptional cases it is much increased while the patient is laboring under the action of the drug.

Mr. John Tweedy {Lancet, 1875,) found that the application of jaborandi to the eye was followed by a lessening of the sensibility of the retina with subsequent impairment of vision and a contraction of

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the pupil of the eye. Defects of accommodation were also observed. All of these disappeared within one .hour and a half.

In a woman, thirty-eight years old, whose ninth child was four months old and who had very little milk, thirty grains of jaborandi produced, besides the usual symptoms, a remarkable increase of milk, causing a distention of the previously flaccid breasts and a flow of milk, jetting forth in four or five streams.

Provings made by physicians of our school substantiate, in the main, the opinions of authorities already mentioned.

MORBID SWEATS.— We may find jaborandi a valuable remedy in morbid sweats, very copious, accompanied by salivation, com- mencing with flushing of the face and profuse perspiration of the forehead and face, followed by great exhaustion.

Dr. Chase mentions a number of such cases which he cured with the second decimal attenuation of the remedy.

DIARRHCEA, watery, gushing and painless; nausea and vomit- ing ; profuse perspiration ; faintness and goneness.

Note. — Dr. Schwahn, of the physiological laboratory in Geissen, noted, that in rabbits the pill-like feces were expelled suddenly and in large quantities. When the abdominal walls were so divided that the intestine could be seen through them, it could be seen that immediately after the administration of jaborandi both the large and small intestines underwent violent peristaltic movement, which lasted for an hour or more. (Centralblatt fuer die Med. Wiss., 1876.)

Jaborandi may also prove of value in the treatment of flushings, and subsequent perspiration, at the climacteric period, urcemia and, possibly, in the early stage of diabetes. Dr. Hale anticipates from it satisfactory results as a regulator and stimulator of uterine activity, especially in the second stage of labor.

Belladonna and atropine antidote the effects of jaborandi.