JABORANDI, a name given in Brazil and South America generally to various plants which increase perspiration and the flow of saliva. In the year 1875 a drug was introduced under this name, its botanical source being then unknown. Pilocarpus pennatifolius, a member of the family Rutaceae, the plant from which it is obtained, is a slightly branched shrub about io ft. high, growing in Paraguay and eastern Brazil.
The leaves are the part of the plant most commonly imported. The active principle is called pilocarpine. It is a liquid alkaloid, slightly soluble in water, and very soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform. It strongly rotates the plane of polarization to the right, and forms crystalline salts of which the nitrate is that chiefly used in medicine. The formula of the alkaloid is N202. Certain other alkaloids are present in the leaves. They have been named jaborine, jaboridine and pilocarpidine. The first of these is the most important. It is possibly derived from pilocarpine, and has the formula Jaborine resembles atropine pharmacologically, and is antagonistic to pilocarpine. The various preparations of jaborandi leaves are therefore undesirable for therapeutic purposes, and only the nitrate of pilocarpine itself should be used.
The action of this powerful alkaloid closely resembles that of physostigmine, but pilocarpine exerts its greatest power on the secretions. It has no external ac tion. When taken by the mouth the drug is rapidly absorbed and stimulates the secretions of the alimentary tract, though not of the liver. The action on the salivary glands is the most marked. The great flow of saliva is due to an action of the drug, on the terminations of the nerves of salivary secretion. The gland cells themselves are unaffected. The nerves are so violently excited that direct stimulation of them by electricity adds nothing to the rate of salivary flow. The action is antagonized by atropine, which paralyses the nerve terminals. About a, 0 of a grain of atropine antagonizes half a grain of pilocarpine. The circulation is depressed by the drug, the pulse being slowed and the blood pressure falling. Its danger ous action is upon the bronchial secretion, which is greatly in creased. Pilocarpine is also the most powerful diaphoretic known.
One dose may cause the flow of nearly a pint of sweat in an hour.