AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
In accordance with the progress of human development, the 
_ most important vegetable remedies are, or were, to a large degree, 
of Oriental or South European origin. America contributed at 
first but few products; and that which has now acquired such 
extraordinary significance in the National economy—tobacco—is 
without importance from a medicinal point of view, although 
Nicotiana was first introduced into Europe for the sake of its 
medicinal virtues. A century later there appeared a remedy 
from the American vegetable kingdom in the form of Cinchona 
bark, the value of which has received ever increasing recognition, 
even under the severest criticism of the present day. With refer- 
ence to the sums of money which it sets in motion, the world’s 
market may designate this bark as the most important medicinal 
remedy, although its value at the present time depends much 
more upon the fact of its affording the crude material for manu- 
facturing industries. Since the discovery of quinine, and the 
immediate subsequent preparation of the same ona manufacturing 
scale, the pharmacognostical importance of Cinchona barks has © 
correspondingly changed; the greater certitude in the quantitative 
estimation of the alkaloids also has the effect of forcing a know- 
ledge of the external characters of the barks, as such, in the back- 
ground. The revolution is slowly effected, and until within a short 
period the chapter of Cinchona barks still flourished in pharma- 
ceutical literature, with all of its original and extreme luxuriance. 
The advances in the cultivation of the Cinchonas now render 
necessary a different comprehension of the subject of “ Chhincho- 
nology” (Chinology or Quinology), as, with scarcely justifiable 
emphasis, this section of pharmacognosy has been named. 
Unfortunately, there is still altogether too much wanting to pro- 
duce satisfactory and complete symmetry. Even from a system- 
atical consideration, the botanical knowledge of the respective 
ili 
