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Summary

Callaeum antifebrile is a South American jungle vine of the family Malpighiaceae which occurs predominantly throughout the Upper Amazon basin, and less frequently along the Lower Amazon. Occasionally a component in ayahuasca decoctions, it is used as a folk medicine in some parts of Brazil, often as an antifebrile (anti-fever) remedy.

Ethnobotany

agahuasca ayahuasca negro bejuco de las calenturas (“fever vine”) caabi pajezinho shillinto shillinto blanco shillinto negro

Callaeum antifebrile is used in folk medicine, particularly in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. In addition to being used as a febrifuge (anti-fever remedy), bathing in an infusion of the plant is said to combat the evil eye, panemice (a curse or disease where the victim is afflicted by bad luck), headaches, or “thick blood,” and the juice of the plant is used to treat gastritis, stomach ulcer, and skin eruptions. It may also be used to treat rheumatism, erysipelas (a skin infection), and stroke, and it may be employed when giving massages to pregnant women.

It has occasionally been reported that C. antifebrile is used as a hallucinogen in the same manner as Banisteriopsis caapi, but this has not been entirely substantiated in any of the published literature. Some sources reference an early paper by Alfonso Ducke as the source of this claim, but Ducke said that although the plant was used in “popular medicine and sorcery,” he did not know whether it “has any narcotic property.” In 1928, the German botanist Franz Josef Niedenzu, a specialist in the Malpighiaceae, published comments on some specimens housed in the Berlin herbarium. He identified the leaves of C. antifebrile in a collection of ayawasca from the Yarinacocha District of Peru, but the attached packet of samaras belonged to a different species, Banisteriopsis quitensis (at present, B. quitensis is regarded as a synonym of B. caapi, but Niedenzu treated them as separate species). Pablo Amaringo reports that C....