Observations and Experiments on Peruvian Bark, 29 
are no doubt founded in fiction. It has long been esteemed a 
valuable medicine in Peru, where it is said the natives have 
adopted its use, from observing that animals esau ae Be 
ted to proper experiments, its efficacy soon een the 
groundless clamor which had been too hastily excited. 
The principle, says Dr. Paris, on which the tonic and 
febrifuge properties of bark depend, has ever been a fruitful 
source of controversy: Deschamps attributed it to.cinchon- 
ate of lime. _Westering considered tannin as the active 
principle ; wel M. Seguin assigned all the pase to the 
principle which eo gale acid. Fabroni coneluded 
from his experiments, that the febrifuge power of the bark 
did not belong Pi cit Bee essentially to the astringent, 
bitter, or to any other individual principle; since the quantity 
of ness sees necessarily be increased by long boiling; 
whereas the virtues of the bark are notoriously diminished 
by protracted ebulittien: 
Perhaps no vegetable substance, underwent so many anal- 
yses, by the at distinguished chemists of Europe, as the 
cinchona ; and yet so little positive knowledge —— rare 
of its true constituents, and such was the ve 
dition of our information of the active eck of cin of pachone. 
hen the scrutinizing, critical and successful researc 
Pelletier and Caventou, detected the existence of two salifi- 
able bases, i in peculiar states of combination, in the different 
species of cinchona. The medical profession is therefore 
indebted to these intelligent and enterprising chemists, 
one me the most valuable additions ever made to the materia 
medic 
Among all the late discoveries in vegetable chemistry, 
there is none which claims so much attention from extensive 
usefulness, as that of quinine. This principle contains 
the tonic and febrifuge properties of Peruvian bark, in their 
most concentrated state. By the substitution of this prepa- 
ration for the crude bark, the ss can ogee ad- 
minister itt ] 
oe 
