54 Observations on a new variety of Peruvian Bark, &c. 
The quality of bark depends no doubt, on the proportion of quinine 
and cinchonine which they respectively contain. The separation 
of these alkalies, therefore, affords a very valuable test to discover the 
qualities of different species of bark. Different barks, however, 
produce with acids various proportions of these two salts. Thus we 
find the Calisaya produces most quinine, the Loxa most cinchonine, 
and the red or oblongifolia yields both these salts in nearly equal propor- 
tions. | What is their comparative value is yet a subject of controversy; 
a considerable majority of practitioners however, are in favor of the qui- 
nine, perhaps because most of them have not had an opportunity of em- 
ploying the cinchonine. Dr. Paris goes so far as to state that cin- 
chonine is only one fifth as active as quinine; others contend for 
the reverse. An interesting paper read before the Academy of 
Medicine at Paris, was published in the Bulletin des Sciences 
Medicales, for November, 1825, in which M. Bally states that he 
has experimented upon the sulphate of cinchonine, with a view to 
determine its febrifuge qualities. He administered this sulphate in 
twenty seven cases of intermittent fevers of different types, in doses 
of 2 grain pills, giving three or four in the interval of paroxysms, by 
which treatment he cured the disease as effectually, and as speedily 
as with the quinine ; of which twenty seven cases, there were sixteen 
tertian, nine quotidian, and two quartan. He remarked further, that 
the cinchonine has properties less irritating than those of quinine, 
and that consequently its employment should be more general, and 
preferred in all simple case. I believe few or no experiments have 
been made,by the physicians of this country upon the medical prop- 
erties of the cinchonine, and it must consequently be very little known 
to them from their own experience. It is most certainly a medicine 
which deserves at least, a trial. 
The sulphate of quinine, as generally termed, is not a perfectly 
neutral salt, being in the state of a sub-sulphate, and is only partly 
soluble in water. Its exhibition in this fluid is rendered much more 
eligible, by the addition of a drop of sulphuric acid to each grain of 
the salt, which makes a perfectly transparent solution, and which I 
think, from its obvious advantages, must entirely supersede the com- 
mon formula of gum and sugar; a few grains of citric or tartaric acid 
will have the same effect as the sulphuric acid, in dissolving the qui- 
nine, and these acids have been preferred by some. Dr. Paris states 
that he lately saw a prescription in which the salt was directed to be 
rubbed with a few grains of cream of tartar, and then to be dissolved 
