152 Scientific Intelligence. [Aug 



It would be interesting to know, if this cold weather has been 

 general, or if it has been confined to Scotland. 



XIII. Singular Effect of Peruvian Bark. 



A French merchant, called M. Delpech, who possessed a rich 

 house at Guayra, the port of the Caraccas, had stored up in 

 1806 a very considerable quantity of cinchona, newly collected. 

 This bark rilled several apartments upon the ground-floor. There 

 prevailed at that time in Caraccas a fever of a wry malignant 

 character. M. Delpech had occasion to receive several travel- 

 lers, inhabitants of these countries, and to entertain them with 

 the usual American hospitality. The apartments destined for 

 visitors being filled, and the number of his guests increasing, he 

 was under the necessity of putting several of them in the rooms 

 occupied by the cinchona. Each of them contained from 8 to 

 10 thousand pounds of that bark. The heat was much greater 

 in these rooms than any where else in the house, in consequence 

 of the fermentation of the bark, which made them very disagreer- 

 able. However, several beds were put into them, one of which 

 was occupied by a traveller, ill of a very malignant fever. After 

 the first day, he found himself much better, though he had taken 

 no medicine ; but he was surrounded with an atmosphere of 

 cinchona, which appeared very agreeable to him. In a few days 

 he felt himself quite recovered without any medical treatment 

 whatever. This unexpected success led M. Delpech to make 

 some other trials. Several persons ill of fever were placed 

 successively in his magazine of cinchona, and they were all 

 speedily cured, simply by the effluvia of the bark. 



In the same place with the cinchona, he kept a bale of coffee, 

 carefully selected for his own use, and likewise some large 

 bottles of common French brandy. They remained for some 

 months in the midst of the bark without being touched. At 

 last M. Delpech, when visiting his magazine, observed one of 

 the large bottles uncorked. He suspected at. first the fidelity of 

 a servant, and determined to examine the quality of the brandy. 

 What was his astonishment to find it infinitely superior to what 

 it had been. A slightly aromatic taste added to its strength, 

 and rendered it more tonic and more agreeable. He uncorked 

 the other bottles, which had undergone no alteration, but which, 

 by being placed in the same circumstances, soon acquired all the 

 good qualities of the first bottle. 



Curious to know if the coffee had likewise changed its proper- 

 ties, he opened the bale, and roasted a portion of it. Its smell 

 and taste were no longer the same. It was more bitter, and left 

 in the mouth a taste similar to that of the infusion of bark. 



The bark which produced these singular effects was fresh. 

 Would the cinchona of commerce have the same efficacy ? This 

 is a question that can be answered only by experiment. — (Jour, 

 de Pharmacie, May, 1819, p. 230.) 



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