314 Dr. Hancock on Quinine. 



understood as including both under the former title, because 

 we have reason to consider them both merely as modifications 

 of one and the same principle, procured by the same process, 

 and possessing similar medicinal properties. 



Although it is plain, however, that quinine is far from con- 

 taining all the active elements of the bark, still the French 

 discovery will, if the foregoing views are correct, contribute to 

 indicate a means of obtaining all its virtues in a light and not 

 unpleasant form, which has long been a great desideratum in 

 pharmaceutic chemistry ; and such a preparation, I presume, 

 will be found in the infusion hereafter proposed, with addi- 

 tion of sulphuric acid, &c. 



Preliminarily, I may observe, that Murray, in his M Materia 

 Medica," has the following passage: — " In those varieties of 

 continued fever, connected with debility, as in typhus, cynanche 

 maligna, confluent small-pox, &c, Peruvian bark has been 

 regarded as a valuable remedy. It is difficult, however, to give 

 it in such quantities as to obtain much sensible effect from it, 

 as, from the weakened state of the organs of digestion, it 

 remains on the stomach unaltered, and is liable to produce 

 nausea and irritation." This points out the necessity of 

 searching for a method of extracting the active principles, (not 

 a single insulated element,) so as to administer them free from 

 the inert woody fibre. 



In alluding, also, to the difficulty often experienced in giving 

 the bark in substance, Dr. Duncan says, " An important objec- 

 tion is, that some stomachs will not bear it, from the oppression 

 and even vomiting which it excites ; that it has long been a 

 pharmaceutical problem to discover what menstruum extracts 

 cinchona most completely ; and that we must have recourse 

 to direct experiment to determine the degree of action pos- 

 sessed by each menstruum upon it. With this view many 

 experiments have been made, and by very able chemists. But 

 most of them were performed when the science of chemistry 

 was but in its infancy; and even at this time, that branch of it 

 which relates to those substances is so little understood, that 

 the results of the latest experiments are far from conclusive *." 



* "Edinburgh New Dispensatory," p. 113. 



