Pareira brava

Chronic catarrhal cystitis with thick ropy mucus in cloudy urine and a dull dragging ache in the loins

Urinary gravel where the patient reports gritty sediment and relief follows a large bland diuresis

Overview. Cissampelos pareira is a slender twining vine of the moonseed family, native to the West Indies, Central and South America, with related populations across tropical Africa and Asia. The root, woody and coarsely fibrous with a grayish wrinkled bark, is the part used medicinally. It entered European and North American practice through South American folk use and was carried into physiomedicalist and eclectic dispensatories of the nineteenth century as a specific remedy for chronic inflammation of the urinary tract.

Clinical Notes. Pareira brava was reached for in the older physiomedical and eclectic tradition primarily as a urinary remedy: a relaxant tonic to a bladder and urethra irritated by long-standing catarrh, gravel, or chronic infection, distinguished by thick mucoid sediment in the urine rather than acute burning pain.

Properties and Uses. The root acts mildly and somewhat slowly, first manifesting a relaxing influence with a little stimulation, and afterward exerting a gentle astringent-tonic influence. Its principal action is directed toward the kidneys and urinary passages; and it mildly increases the urinary flow, relieves lingering irritation of the bladder and urethra, and diminishes mucous discharges from the urino-genital membranes.

Description. Natural Order, Menispermaceae. Woodville describes this as “A climbing shrub. Stem round, often covered with a close down, twining up and over great trees. Root woody, branching. Leaves large, roundish, peltate, sub-cordate, smooth above, covered beneath with silky pubescence.