DRUGS. 61 



years the ground bark, mixed with port wine, was a 

 favourite medicine. In the course of time, however, the 

 method of separating the active principles of the bark in 

 the form of alkaloids as quinine, cinchonine, cinchonidine, 

 quinidine, etc., became known, and the first of these 

 namely, quinine, or sulphate of quinine soon assumed a 

 most important position as a drug, the demand for which 

 increased so rapidly, not only for consumption in our own 

 country, but also for exportation to India and the colonies, 

 that it realised a very high price, and led to a very great 

 increase in the demand for bark from the South American 

 forests, to meet which trees were cut down in ever-increas- 

 ing quantities ; and as no steps were taken by the govern- 

 ments of the states in which the trees grew to prevent this, 

 or to establish fresh plantations, it was apparent that at no 

 distant date the supply of cinchona-bark must fail, and the 

 most valuable medicine in all the pharmacopoeia be entirely 

 lost. Consequently in 1839 the advisability of introducing 

 the trees for cultivation in India was suggested by Dr. 

 Royle ; nothing, however, came of this suggestion for at 

 least twenty years. In the meantime the Indian Govern- 

 ment were paying enormous sums for quinine as much as 

 7,000 in 1852, increasing in 1857 to 12,000. This fact, 

 together with that of the absolute extinction of the plants 

 being in the near future, caused the Indian Government to 

 seriously consider the question, and to adopt arrangements 

 for the introduction of the trees into India. In 1859 Mr. 

 Clements Markham received instructions from the Secretary 

 of State for India to undertake the necessary arrangements 

 for obtaining plants from the South American forests of 

 those species of cinchona which were known to be the most 

 valuable for the production of quinine, and to transmit 

 those plants to India for experimental cultivation. For 

 this purpose two expeditions were organised, one under the 

 direct superintendence of Mr. Markham himself, and the 



