22 
chon, Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera Bobadella y Mendoza, 
who was Viceroy in Lima from 1629 to 1639. It is very pro- 
‘bable that his wife, after her return to Spain in 1640, was the 
first who introduced the Cinchona bark into Europe. The name 
of Pulvis Comitisse appears even more ancient than that of 
Pulvis Jesuiticus or Pulvis Patrum. But I do not believe (and 
M. Olmedo in Loxa is of the same opinion with me) that the 
corregidor of Loxa, Don Juan Lopez de Cannizares,* who 
is said to have cured the Countess of the ague, received this re- 
medy from the Indians. In Loxa there is no tradition whatever 
of this kind; ‘nor is it probable that the discovery of the medi- 
cinal power of the Cinchona belongs to the primitive nations 
of America, if it is considered that these nations (like the Hin- 
doos) adhere with unalterable pertinacity to their customs, to 
their food, and to their nostrums, and that, notwithstanding all 
this, the use of the Cinchona bark is entirely unknown to them 
in Loxa, Guancabamba, and far around. In the deep and hot 
valleys of the mountains of Catamago, Rio Calvas, and Macara, 
-agues are extremely common. But the natives there, as well 
as in Loxa, of whatever cast, would die rather than have re- 
course to Cinchona bark, which, together with opiates, they 
place in the class of poisons exciting mortification. The Indians 
eure themselves by lemonades, by the oleaginous aromatic peel of 
the small green wild lemon, by infusions of Scoparia dulcis, and 
by strong coffee:+ In Malacatis only, where many bark-peelers 
live, they begin to put confidence in the Cinchona bark. In 
Loxa there is no document to be found which can elucidate the 
history of the discovery of the Cinchona: an old tradition, how- 
ee Flora Peruviana, tom. ii. p. 2, 
~*$ Among the Indians on the Orinoco, particularly in Atures and Maypura, we have found 
an excellent febrifuge, the frutta de Burro, the fruit of a new Species of Uvaria, whieh we 
shave described by the name of Uvaria Sebrifuga. 
