20 ` ANALYSIS OF CHINCHONA BARK AND LEAVES. 
must very seriously diminish the percentage of six per cent. T ob- 
tained from this gross product little more than four per cent. refined in 
the first instance (though more subsequently), and of this I ascertained 
about ten per cent. as Chinchonidine. This difficulty must be looked 
steadily in the face, and I would suggest that it may be obviated, 
either by a-change being wrought in the opinion of the medical world 
as to the value of Chinchonidine as a medicine, or by the plant being 
encouraged to produce Quinine instead of Chinchonidine. 
The first might be, very probably, the result of a commission of 
inquiry composed of competent medical practitioners. I may mention 
that the late Dr. Royle entered zealously, at my suggestion, into the 
question, and satisfied himself by experiment as to the value of Chin- 
chonidine, but I am not aware that he left any written record of the 
result he attained. My own experiments confirm this view of the 
question, and I have shown* that this alkaloid (which must not be 
confounded with Chinchonine) must have constituted (in whole or in 
part) the therapeutic agent in the eure of the Countess of Chinchon, as 
also that it was the alkaloid successfully employed at Philadelphia. 
The second alternative may seem visionary at first sight, but when we 
consider the results at which Mr. M‘Ivor has arrived, and, further, the 
circumstances under which Chinchonidine is produced, this view of the 
case may be altered. 
In No. 7, we have an illustration of what careful cultivation will do, 
as the plant C. micrantha, which (with its congeners the Grey Barks) 
produces largely and chiefly Chinchonine in its native climate of Hua- 
nuco}, now produces a very small portion of Chinchonine, and a large 
quantity of the allied alkaloid Quinidine. This is, then, a hopeful 
change, if time should confirm the observation. 
Then Chinchonidine seems almost always to accompany Quinine in 
greater or less abundance. It does so in the Calisaya of Bolivia, in the 
lancifolia barks of New Granada, and in various barks of Ecuador and 
Peru, and markedly in the best of the barks of Loxa. It is highly 
probable that a very slight circumstance in the growth may determine 
the production of one or other alkaloid. Dr. Herapath has shown in 
a communication to the Royal Society, ** Researches on the Chinchona 
* * Ilustration of * Nueva Quinologia, sub voce Chahuar, 
t A peculiar climate. i 
guera,” 
» of which I have recorded Mr. Pritchett’s description 
under head C. micrantha. 
