JABORANDI, a name given in South America to several species of plants used as diaphoretics. The plant grows chiefly in Brazil, and is most known iu the neighbor hood of Pernambuco. The botanical name is pilocarpus pennatifolius (Lemaire). The leaves are imparipinnate, composed of 4 to 10 short-stalked leaflets about 4 in. long, ovate-oblong, upper surface dark-green, shining, under surface paler, smooth or slightly hairy, midrib prominent. When bruised they arc aromatic; taste somewhat bitter. The important constituents are a volatile oil, and an alkaloid called pilocarpin, which /combines with various acids to form salts. According to Kingzett (1876) the chemical formula for the alkaloid is C,3I134N404. According to Hardy the oil consists of a hydro pilocarpene, having the formula Goalie; sp. gr. 85°; boiling Swint, 352.4' F.; another hydrocarbon at 49.2' F., and a third having a still higher boiling point, being a transparent solid when isolated, at ordinary temperatures. An infusion of the leaves or a fluid-extract or tincture, may be given internally; or one of the salts may be administered with a hypodermic syringe. When an infusion of 90 grains of the dried leaves, or an extract or tincture of corresponding strength is swallowed, it produces, in the course of two or three minutes, a flushing of the face, and in the course of five or six minutes drops of sweat appear on the forehead, and soon afterwards on other parts of the body and limbs. When sweating is established the face becomes pale, and a pro fuse secretion of saliva and nasal and bronchial mucus is poured out upon the mucous surfaces, and often there is an abundant secretion of tears. The salivation is often so profuse as to interfere with speech. The average duration of sweating is abeut one hour and a half, and the temperature usually falls 1° F. The average loss of fluid by sweating is nearly two pints, but the loss is said sometimes to be four quarts if the salivary and mucous secretions are included. Sometimes, though rarely, sweating does not take place, but salivation is more frequently absent than sweating. Vomiting is a. usual occurrence, but the nausea• is not great. The quantity of urine secreted during the sweating is diminished, and is passed with pain. Urea appears in the perspiration and saliva. The sight frequently becomes dimmed—an effect attributed to the action of
the drug on the muscles of accommodation belonging to the lens. See EYE. Jaborandi is an effective galacta,gogue, or promoter ot' the lacteal secretion. When given in moderate doses it increases the flow of milk, and on this account is one of the roost valuable late additions to the materia mediea. Tile hypodermic injection of one-sixth or one-fifth of a grain of pilocaipin, or the • inuriate, produces much the same effects as the internal administration of the infusion of the leaves, but the action is more prompt as well as more lasting. With the hypodermic injection sweating always takes place, and vomit ing is less frequent.
The medical uses of jaborandi are numerous. It often promptly relieves the dis tressing symptoms of pleurisy by removing the fluid in the pleural sac. See PLEURISY. In bydrothorax the relief given is even more noticeable, and also in many cases of dropsy, those arising from certain forms of kidney disease being often cured. In dropsy caused by heart-disease the relief which it affords is more temporary; and it should be used with great cantion by those disposed to cardiac affections, as it possesses peculiar power in restraining the contractions of the heart, and is used by experimental physiologists in investirating the function's of the nervous system. In those dropsical affections, however, which are connected with simple hypertrophy of the ventricles, the use of jaborandi is attended with marked benefit. Dr. Gaspar Griswold, of New York, has employed the muriate of pilocarpin as a hypodermic injection in several eases of intermittent fever with almost uniform success. See INTERMITTENT FEVER. According to Galezowski, pilocarpin is equal to eserin, the active principle of the Cala bar bean (q.v.), in producing contraction of the pupil, and is employed in ophthalmic surgery in cases where atropine, which produces dilatation of the pupil, is contraindi cated. It is reported to have been used in mrtnipx with signal benefit, and in asthma it has been found to give great relief. The salts of the alkaloid may be given internally in doses of from one-fourth to three-fourths of a grain, and hypodermically from one-sixth to one-fifth of a grain, dissolved in water.