RUBIACEZ. 179 
nal nervous system of the spleen. (Binz.) The function of 
ryan, it is added, being to form the white corpuscles of 
blood and to prepare various oxidized substances, and 
cially uric acid, for excretion, and quinine having the 
wer of restraining both of these operations, necessarily the 
organ appropriated to them must contract in proportion to 
the restriction of its functions. 
Quinine, being excreted _with the wrine to the extent of at 
“least one-half, sometimes occasions irritation of the urinary 
passages, causing in different cases micturition, r retention of 
urine, and even hematuria. (Stillé and Maisch. 
But the most important property of quinine is its destructive 
action ‘upon the low animal organisms (heamatozoa), whose 
presence in the blood has been shown by Laveran (Archives de 
édecine Expérimentale, 1., p. 789; ii., p. 1,) to be the exciting 
use of malarial fevers. Previous to Laveran’s great discovery, — 
the power possessed by the cinchona alkaloids of preventing as 
vell as curing these fevers had long been a well recognised 
t, and it was known that a person under the influence of a 
se of quinine (2 to 5 grains given once or twice a day) might 
ge exposed to malarial contagion without danger. The anti- 
septic properties of quinine had also been sufficiently estab- 
ed, a dilute solution having been found to preserve fluids 
ntaining animal matter from putrefaction for a length of time, 
though it had not the same destructive action upon the lower 
rms of alge as it had upon the lower forms of animal life. 
averan’s observations, which have now been amply confirmed, 
show that the hematozoa of malaria are present in the blood 
in the greatest number immediately before the febrile panies 
which is an effort of nature for their destruction, and that t 
1dministration of the cinchona alkaloids, and more especially of 
inine, has a marked effect in reducing the number of these — 
rasites, and inasmuch as they remove the cause of the irri: : 
ion, they also prevent the recurrence of 
cit. 1889—90; Iasran, cohed con 
