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| CINCHONA OFFICINALIS. ORD. XIV. Contorie. | 263 
figured. by Jacquin* and Dr. Wright ;' it grows in: ietinion; where 
it is called the Sea Side Beech. According to Dr. Wright, the bark 
of this tree is not less efficacious than that of the Cinchona of Peru, 
for which it will prove an useful substitute; but by the experiments 
of Dr. Skeete it appears to have less astringent power.* The 
. Cinchona floribunda, or bark tree of St. Lucie, a figure of which 
we find in Phil. Trans. also in Rozier’s Observations sur la Physique, 
affords a bark which is likewise said to have been used with advan- 
| tage; but notwithstanding all that has been written to establish 
its medicinal character,’ it seems to us greatly inferior to that of 
the other species of this genus. In its recent state it is considerably 
emetic and cathartic; properties, which in some degree it retains 
: on being dried; so that the stomach does not bear this bark in 
large doses, and in small ones its effects are not such as to give it 
any peculiar recommendation. Several species ‘of Cinchona have 
lately been discovered at Santa Fé, yielding barks both of the pale 
and red kind; and which, from their sensible qualities, are likel 
upon trial to. become equally useful with those produced in the 
kingdom of Perv.™ 
~ At present, the use of the bark is chiefly confined to the pale and 
red kind; and the nearer the former resembles the latter, the more 
it is esteemed. 
« The Peruvian Bark yields its virtues both to cold and boiling 
| water ; but the decoction is thicker, gives out its taste more readily, 
and forms an ink with a chalybeate more suddenly than the fresh 
cold infusion. ‘This infusion, however, contains at least as much 
extractive matter, but more in a state of solution; and its colour on 
standing with the chalybeate becomes darker, while that of the de- 
coction becomes more faint.. When they are of a certain age, the 
» Amer. pict. tab. 23. * Phil. Trans. Vol. 67. _& Exper. p. 339. 
1 See Kentish. Exp. and Obsero. on the Peruvian Bark. Davidson in Phit, 
Trans. Vol. 74. and Trans. of the American Phil, Soc. Vol. 2. Malict in — 
sur le Quinquina de la Martinique, &¢. 
™ See Memoria o Disseriazione sopra ta nuova China del regno de St. Fé, &¢. 
cm 
ae 
