Jaborandi is a three to four foot shrub with smooth grey bark and large leathery leaves which is native to the Brazilian Amazon. In 1570, Gabriel Soares de Souza, an European observer noted the Guarani Indians using the plant to treat mouth ulcers. In the 1630's two Dutch West Indian Company scientists documented Brazilian Indians using it as a tonic or panacea for colds and flu, a remedy against gonorrhea and kidney stones and found that it was often used as an antidote to various poisons or toxins due to it's ability to promote sweating, urination and salivation. The Indigenous Tribes prized the diaphoretic
properties of the plant particularly since they viewed sweating as a treatment in many diseases. Jaborandi is a perfect example of a plant which made the
transition from Amazonian indigenous tribal use and folklore to modern science and medicine.

The introduction of jaborandi leaves to western medicine was in 1873, when Symphronio Coutinho, a doctor from Bahia went to Paris for a European doctoral degree, taking with him samples of the leaves. The copious sweating and salivation brought about by the leaves attracted the attention of French physicians who began clinical research, publishing their first studies just one year later. The studies showed that jaborandi leaves "increases enormously the perspiration and saliva, and, in a much less degree, the secretion from the mucous membranes of the nose, the bronchial tubes, and the stomach and intestines." In 1875, two researchers independently discovered the alkaloid, pilocarpine and its use to lower the intraocular pressure in glaucoma and act as
a miotic. By 1876, Jaborandi leaves were being employed in the treatment of many diseases including "fever, stomatitis, enterocolitis, laryngitis and bronchitis, bronchiectasis, influenza, pneumonia, hydropericarditis, hydropsy, psoriasis, intoxications, neurosis and renal disease - to mention only a few of the conditions for which they were valued." Mrs. M. Grieve in "A Modern Herbal" recorded almost one hundred years later that Jaborandi was still used for
psoriasis, prurigo, baldness, tonsillitis and dropsy.

In 1876, A. Weber introduced chemically from Jaborandi the isolated Pilocarpine alkaloids into the ophthalmological therapy. One year later it was used as a local drug to lower the intraocular pressure in glaucoma. The mixture of pilocarpine and another natural product, physostigmine, remains to this day one of the mainstays in ophthalmology. There are over a thousand clinical studies on pilocarpine, but as with most plant-based drugs, the use of the whole
natural plant fell out of disuse as a natural remedy in favor of the single isolated active ingredient that was used as the prescription drug.

Clinical research is still ongoing today on the isolated alkaloid of Jaborandi leaves, pilocarpine. Some of the latest research is now focused on the topical applications of it as a transdermal penetration agent for other pharmacologic agents since it has the ability to open skin pores and promote capillary blood circulation. These effects are also attributed to its use as a topical agent for baldness.