CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE CINCHONA BARKS. 63 
the maximum, however, of 2% per cent. in the wood of the root. 
Reichardt has obtained from Huanuco bark 134 per cent., Reichel 
quite as much from Cinchona flava fibrosa (p. 44), and Howard’ 
4.28 per cent. 
Whether Cinchona barks exist in which this bitter principle is 
wanting, still requires proof. 
For the detection of the active principles of the Cinchona barks, 
experiments were already instituted in the preceding century, 
although Gomes was the first who, in 1810, and more completely 
in October, 1811, succeeded to any extent in the preparation of 
the alkaloids from the Cinchona barks. He dissolved an alcoholic 
extract of Cinchona in water, and precipitated by potassa a body 
which he re-crystallized from alcohol, and named cinchonine. That 
this preparation was of a basic nature, was first observed by Houtou- 
Labillardiére in the laboratory of Thénard, at Paris, and com- 
municated to Pelletier and Caventou.s To these chemists, who 
were guided by Sertiirner’s brilliant discovery of morphine,‘ we are 
indebted for a more precise acquaintance with Gomes’ cinchonine, 
and the proof (1820) that two basic principles, quinine and cincho- 
nine, are contained therein, to which the therapeutic effects of 
Cinchona belong. It is the former upon which almost exclusively 
the value of Cinchona bark depends. 
The following bases occur in noteworthy amounts in Cinchona 
barks :— 
Quinine, ‘ : : ‘ 5 ‘ a ‘ : : C,oH,,N,0, 
Quinidine,® discovered by Henry and Delondre, in 1833, . ; : bene: 
Cinchonine, —. ‘ ; ‘ wii s “ = ‘ ‘ Dees BS Pe 8 
Cinchonidine, discovered by Winckler, in 1847, . A - pair wl 
1 Examination of Pavon's Collection of Peruvian Barks contained in the British Mu- 
seum, London, 1853, 8vo, pp. 47 (From the Pharm. Fourn., June, 1852). 
2 Ensaio sobre o chinchonino, Lisboa, 1810. A translation in the Medical and 
Surgical Fournal, Edinburgh, 1811, p. 420. More extended in Memor. da acad. real 
das Sciencias de Lisboa, U1 (1812), pp. 202 to 217: Ensaio sobre o cinchonino, e sobre 
sua influencia na virtude da quina e d’outras cascas. Antonio Bernardino Gomez was 
a Portuguese physician, who spent the last years of the eighteenth century in Brazil, 
then lived in Lisbon, and died there in 1823. In 1801 there appeared there his ‘‘ Memoria 
sobre a Ipecacuanha fusca do Brazil ou Cipé das nossas boticas;” in 1801 and 1809, in 
Rio Janeiro, two essays on the cultivation of cinnamon, and finally the above notice 
relating to cinchonine. Compare Colmeiro, La botanica y los botanicos de la peninsula 
hispano-lusitana. Madrid, 1858, pp. 58, 199. 
3 Annales de Chimie et de Phys., XV (1820), p. 292. Houtou-Labillardiére died, in 
1867, at Alencon. For the discovery of the cinchona bases, Pelletier and Caventou 
received, in 1827, from the Institut de France, the Montyon prize of 10,000 francs. In 
the year 1826 there had already been prepared at Paris 90,000 ounces (more than 2700 
kilograms) of sulphate of quinine. Berzelius, Fahresbericht der Chemie., VIII (1829), 
page 246. aoe ; 
4 Flickiger, Pharmakognosie, second edition, 1881, p. 176. __ ee ey 
5 Betachinin, Van Heijningen, 1849, and Koch, 1861; cinchotin, Hiasiwetz, 1850; de- 
tachinidin, Kerner, 1862; conchinin, Hesse, 1865. See Liebig's Annalen, 192 (1878), 
p. 192. Archiv. der Pharm., 216 (1880), p. 259, etc. 
