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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Juxn i, 1887. 



DRUGS AND QUININE. 



Mr. C. W. White, who was in Ceylon on his way 

 round tlie wodd about six years aj^o, is again on a 

 ."^hort business visit here. Mr. White is well-known as 

 the representative of the great drug houses of 

 Burgoyne, Burbidges, Cyriax and Farries — from 

 whose monthly publication we often extract into our 

 Tmpii-al Jjirirulturixt with advantage to planters of 

 new products, the T. A. being as often honoured by 

 references in this Firm's London " Monthly " — also 

 of Burroughs, Wellcome il- Co., whosenameas manu- 

 facturing chemists and wholesale drug distributors is 

 worldknown. Mr. White also represents the house of 

 Messrs. Win. Harland S: Son, \'arnish and Japan 

 Manufacturers. We have been urging on Mr. 

 White to make known to his principals in the great 

 Drug Firms, the importance of their taking special 

 steps to bring the cheapness of (juinine before 

 masses of people in districts and countries where 

 a febrifuge is as great a necessity almost as 

 daily food. We had a notable case reported in 

 the English papers the other day, in which a 

 country druggist was tried for putting nuicli less 

 quinine in a preparation than was prescribed ; but 

 the important fact came out in his evidence that 

 the rule of his establishment (and of most other 

 English druggists' stores) was to charge Id j^er grain 

 of quinine prescribed, irrespective of ups and downs 

 in the wholesale London market. This was, of course, 

 at the rate of 40s pev ounce 1 Now, we have tlia 

 fact that in the malarious Fen, Essex and Kentish- 

 Gravesend districts, numbers of jjoor people have 

 got into the habit of buying laudanum (opium- 

 drinking) by the wine-glass to soothe and check 

 depression and other symptoms actually due to 

 low fever. For the same reason, thousands, if 

 not millions, of Chinese in the malarial fiats of 

 the Middle-Iungdom, have taken to opium. The cure 

 in both cases is plenty of cheap quinine. Archibald 

 Colquhoun, as we have often mentioned, found 

 !i pinch of quinine the most valued gift he 

 could make to the Mandarins away up the 

 Canton river and " across Chryse." In the 

 same way we found i\Iissionaries carrying packets 

 of quinine pills back from America for the 

 benefit of poor Chinese about the coast settle- 

 ments. Again when travelling in the Southern 

 Slates of America, we had repeated evidence of 

 the immense value attached to cheap (luinine : 

 tire ex-Surgeon General of the Confederate Army 

 assured us in Eichmond that Lee's Army could have 

 withstood Grant's invading force for another cam- 

 paign at least, had he (the doctor) only had ciuinine 

 or " bark" to enable him to put back from the hos- 

 l^itals and villages in the field thousands of ague- 

 stricken veterans. "The utter want of bark" — the 

 blockade being strictly enforced — "more than any 

 thing else" ^aid the old Doctor, " broke the power and 

 spirit of the South." Now we suspect that neither 

 in China nor in the Southern States of America, 

 nor yet in the Fen districts of England have the 

 present abundance and cheapness of quinine been 

 realised as they ought. In respect of China, we have 

 suggested to Mr. White that the big London 

 th-ms should employ Chinese as "medicine men" 

 to travel through the country with supplies of 

 quinine jjieparations, making known where such 

 could be obtained in their coast agencies. We 

 were interested in learning that Messrs. Burgoyne 

 Burbidges ifc Co., went to the expense some years ago 

 of printing in Chinese a list of suitable English 

 medicines witli exjilanations — probably the lirsl for- 

 eign list ever printed in Chinese -and distributed the 

 same by thousands if not millions of copies, 

 and it must be remembered that all printed 

 matter is venerated by the Chinese. But this 

 ught tQ be followed up we think, especially 



in respect of quinine, by the employment of a staf¥ 

 of " medici;*e-men " to peregrinate the provinces of 

 the great Empire, selling at least enough to pay the 

 expense of the experiment and above all making 

 known where the medicine to take away the taste 

 for " the black-smoke poison" (opium) could always be 

 procured. We trust Mr. White will forward our 

 suggestion and that it will be acted on by the 

 great London drug houses. To whom else are the 

 Cinchona planters of Ceylon, .Java and India to 

 look to, for to make known the present cheapness as 

 well as the virtues of the invaluable febrifuge which 

 their enterprise has lowered from lis to LSs the 

 wholesale price between 1H77 and 1881, to 23 or 83 

 per ounce in 1887. 



jAMiidf, Sekds.— A correspondent of one of the 

 medical journaKs calls attention to the value of these 

 seed.s (the produce of Eugenia Jambolana) iu chrouic 

 diabetefi. lu what way the teeds iulfuence this 

 mysterious disease is not stated. — GarJenem' Clirnnicle. 

 [This is surely the Jambo or Eose-apple tree.— Ed.] 



AitERiCAN-GRowx EHunARB.— The Xationah- Driig- 

 .ry/.<e states that it has received a piece of the root 

 of Jllu'itm jjahnatuiii, grown in the garden of Mr. 

 J. W, Coicord, a pharmacist of Lynn, Mass. The 

 seed was planted in 1884. The specimen com- 

 pared favourably with the foreign drug as far as 

 taste, smell, and general appearance were concerned. 

 A microscopic examination showed a preponder- 

 ance of starch, and less oxalate of calcium. 

 — Chemist & l)rng(jist. 



Okyi.on Gems, etc.— a chatty writer on "Tlie Fash 

 ious" ia the Orerhtnd Mail writes thus in a late 

 Wo.— I lately had the pleasure of inspecting a large 

 and very interesting collection of precious stones, 

 brought over froni Ceylon by tlie well-known expert, 

 IMr. Hay ward. Here they were to be seen from their 

 rough state just fresh from the pits to the perfect gems 

 in their artistic settings, ready to wear. He most kindly 

 took me iutc his inner room where sapphires and rubies 

 were to be seen galore. It reminded 'one of some en- 

 chanted place where one might pick up literally band- 

 fuls of jewels, so plentiful were they. But first I wag 

 deeply interested iu an enormous hexagon crystal, one 

 of the finest ever seen, inside which one could dis- 

 tinctly detect the watery fluid. Also a wonderful 

 mineral known as rutile, full of needle-like sphies, that 

 were quite visible on looking through it. Then a curi- 

 ous green smoky looking stone called jargoou. I was 

 informed that sapphires and rubies belong to the same 

 family of stones, and are composed of the same ma- 

 terials. Certainly I never could have believed that 

 what looked like a diamond could possibly be a sap- 

 phire, nor another clearly yellow, as well as a greeu 

 stone ; yet such strange metamorphoses do they siiow, 

 and take hundreds of various shades between these 

 liues. One of the most beautiful novelties was the star 

 sapphires. These curious greyish stones are iu cabo- 

 chon form, and polished couically. On the top, if one 

 shades them from the light, one can instantly perceive 

 a delicate star that moves like the light in a catseye. 

 Of catseyes, also, JNIr. Hayward had a wonderful col- 

 lection, as also pearls, jacinths, mooostones, topazes, 

 exqui.site tourmalines, with their soft-green tint, and 

 chrysoberyls. Also an Oriental amethyst, which is 

 truly a magic stone, for by daylight it is of the richest 

 purple, and by candlelight a superb red. As I -xa.^ leav- 

 ing this very interesting collection my eye caught 

 what 1 took for a very tine line engraving surround- 

 ing, as a border, a map of Ceylon. In the centre was 

 the map, be.iutifully executed, and, in ornamental 

 eiicarcdiin'jits, a drawing of every auimal aud reptile 

 indigenous to the island. I was told to my very great 

 surprise that the whole thiug was the handiwork of 

 a natis'i' boy. 1 uever saw more perfect etching nor 

 neat drawing. [This map, we believe, is a Zoological 

 i\lap of the Island — the work of one of the pupils of 

 St. Benedict's Institute.— Ed. Local "Examiner."] 



