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The Indians of the northwest Amazon respect age and try to care for those suffering from senile dementia. At least 25 species of plants are employed in treating Alzheimer's disease or similar problems. The plants are administered orally as teas of the leaves or roots and over a period of several days to numerous weeks. The plants are from 15 phanerogamic families. Little chemistry is known of most of the species. In view of the current interest in Alzheimer's disease and related problems these species might profitably be investigated.

A report in an Ecuadorian anthropological monograph that Petunia violacea was used as a hallucinogen by some native South American people under the name Shanin. (Alvear, 1971) stimulated interest in the ethnobotanical literature (Schultes, 1975). This was particularly interesting because the species is a member of the alkaloid-rich Solanaceae family. No reports of its containing alkaloids have been published to date (Raffauf, 1970). We have unsuccessfully attempted to isolate an alkaloid from this plant grown in the greenhouse, and recently interviewed the author of the original report. This communication will summarize the results of the laboratory work and the interview.

This paper continues ethnopharmacological notes on biodynamic plants employed by Indians of the Amazon region as medicines, poisons or narcotics.

Much has been learned concerning psychoactive snuffs in South America in the past 15 years since I delivered a review paper in the now famous symposium “Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs” held in San Francisco in 1967 (Efron et al., 1967; Schultes, 1967). There is still much to be investigated, but it seems that a recapitulation at this time may be warranted. The advances in our knowledge have come about as a result of field work as well as laboratory research and have been effected by investigators in several disciplines: archaeology, ethnobotany, ethnology and phytochemistry.

This paper continues ethnopharmacological notes on biodynamic plants employed by Indians of the Amazon region as medicines, poisons or narcotics.

The perspicacity in knowledge of psychotropic plants amongst the Indians of the northwest Amazon is uncanny. Even taking into account the millenia of living in intimate association with his ambient vegetation and his thousands of opportunities to learn through trial and error even considering these circumstances, his achievements at bending the properties of plants to his use are astonishing. There is little, however, that can compare with his use of the coca plant and its permeation into all of society and tribal customs. For throughout the northwestern Amazon, most Indian groups employ coca and have exalted it to a level never attained in the highland parts of the Andes, where its use has persisted from ancient times.

In spite of many references to Pilocarpus Jaborandi Holmes in ethnological and botanical sources and suggestions of its employment for a variety of diseases, it has not been possible to pin down the use of its leaves to any particular purpose amongst South American Indians. While the medically important jaborandis are species of Pilocarpus, it is true that this vernacular name is commonly applied to other rutaceous and numerous piperaceous plants as well. The introduction of jaborandi leaves to western medicine goes back to 1873, when Symphronio Coutinho went to Europe, taking with him samples of the leaves. The copious sweating and salivation brought about by the leaves attracted the attention of French physicians. Soon jaborandi leaves were being employed in the treatment of many diseases. In 1875, Hardy and Gerrard independently discovered the alkaloid pilocarpine. Most therapeutic applications of jaborandi leaves and pilocarpine fell into disuse and were discontinued. What remained was the use of the latter in ophthalmology, where it had been introduced as a miotic by Weber in 1876. The mixture of pilocarpine and another natural product, physostigmine, remains to this day one of the mainstays in ophthalmology.

A convulsant isolated from Brunfelsia grandiflora is identified as pyrrole-3-carbox-amidine.