Erroneous Conceptions as to Failure of Supply of Bark. 413 



advance our knowledge of the Cinchona tree and its cul- 

 tivation. My different efforts to obtain reliable informa- 

 tion on the cultivation of the China bark tree in its mother 

 country were especially promoted by my having met, while 

 at Lima, with Mr. Campbell, who, during the many years 

 he has been settled at Tacna, has paid especial attention to 

 the China bark trade. For the chief export of this im- 

 portant medicament is in the hands of the Bolivians, and 

 not of the Peruvians, as the uninitiated might imagine from 

 the name it is usually known by in commerce, viz. Peruvian 

 bark.* 



The most important facts which I am here enabled to dwell 

 uj)on relate to the correction of a wide-spread misconception, 

 that owing to the thirst for plunder and the wilful neglect of 

 the China tree in its own native regions, the supply of the 

 valuable drug obtained from its bark, the well-known Coun- 

 tess' f or Jesuit bark, which to the practical physician is of 



* The name dates from the time when what is now BoHvia (in the forest of which 

 the China tree chiefly grows) formed an integral portion of Pern, and was in fact 

 called Upper Peru, whereas from that which is now called Peru, hardly any bark is 

 exported, while that found in New Granada and Ecuador, whence it is exported 

 to Spain under the name of Pitaya, is a species of very inferior quality for medicinal 

 purposes. 



t The name, Countess' powder, which was given to the drug owing to its use by a 

 certain Countess Chinchon (wife of a Peruvian viceroy), was afterwards altered to 

 Cardinal's or Jesuit's powder, in consequence of the Procurator-general of the order 

 of Jesus, Cardinal de Lugo, having, during his passage through France, everywhere 

 made known the virtues of the drug, and recommended it to the particular atten- 

 tion of Cardinal Mazarin, as the brethren of the order had begim to drive quite a 

 lucrative trade in South American China bark, which they had carried on by their 

 missionaries. V. Humboldt's '■'■ Ansichten der Natvr" thii'd edition, 1849, vol. ii. 

 p. 372. 



