1892.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 113 



that time no basic substance had been found in plants and they 

 were thoufjht to be only capable of producing" acids and or<ranic 

 salts of mineral substances ; but this discovei'y of Sertiirner 

 opened a new field of intpiiry, and a search for alkaloidal bodies 

 in plants led to a rich harvest for the apothecary and physician. 

 Conium, strychnine, cinchonine. quinine, cocaine, atropine, vera- 

 trine, and many others were soon separated from the plants that 

 up to this time had been used as the active agents in the hands of 

 the physician. 



The bark of a tree from Peru was known in Europe as a specific 

 for fever as early as the year l(i40. In 1737, La Condamine, the 

 botanist, in a journey through Lima, saw the tree and described it 

 in the Mdmoires of the French Academy. Soon afterward Linnaeus 

 gave it the name of Cinchona, after the Countess of Cinchon, who, 

 it is said, was the first to introduce its use into Europe. 



As early as 1803 efl'orts were made to separate the active principle 

 from this cinchona bark, and several materials were made from it 

 that were supposed to be this principle, but failed to produce the 

 effects obtained b}^ the use of the bark itself. These efforts con- 

 tinued for seventeen years, when, in 1820. Pellatier and Cavento 

 isolated cinchonine and quinine and proved that these two substances 

 would give the peculiar antifebrifuge results obtained from the 

 Peruvian bark. This discovery led to the offer of a prize by the 

 French Academy of Medicine of 20,000 francs to the individual 

 who should be able to produce it artificially or without the use of 

 Peruvian bark. 



When we consider that in 1823, about the time this prize was 

 offered, the price of quinine was $20 per ounce, it may be readily 

 understood how important such a process as its artificial production 

 would prove. 



For a long time all attempts at the synthesis of quinine were 

 pursued on the assumption that it w^as represented by the formula 

 C.^qH^^NjOj, and cinchonidine was taken as CjoH^^N.^O, so that the 

 atom of constituted the whole difference. Nothing seemed 

 simpler than to tack on an atom of to the cinchonidine and con- 

 vert it into quinine. When this was eflTected, how^ever, the result- 

 ing compound differed entirely from quinine, both in physical char- 

 acter and physiological action, so that it was obvious that the theory 

 w^as wrong. To-day the annual production of the bark is worth 

 between seven and eight millions of dollars. 



In 1856, it was the desire on the part of Perkin, the English 

 chemist, to obtain quinine from aniline that led to the discovery of 

 the first of the aniline colors, namely, mauve. After the methods 

 perfected by Liebig, Will, and Varrentrapp, the composition of ani- 

 line became firmly established, and it was the study of this analysis 

 that first led Perkin into the idea that quinine could probably be 

 made artificially. He failed to make what he wished, but w^ho can 

 estimate the value of the industry that started when in his search 



