CINCHONA 65 



Jussieu 1 states that the first knowledge of the efficacy of 

 this bark was derived from the Indians of Malacotas, 

 some leagues south of Loxa. Weddell's History.* 



Ralph Irving, 3 1785, records current tradition of 

 his day, as follows: "It has been generally supposed 

 that the Indians were acquainted with the use of this 

 bark as early as the year 1500. It has also been alleged 

 that the discovery was due to the accident of a diseased 

 Indian drinking from necessity some stagnant water 

 wherein this tree had long macerated." This tradi- 

 tional narrative is varied by others, who state that 

 "the party cured was a Spanish soldier." (Wellcome, 

 page 829.) Irving, in answer to the question why 

 for more than one hundred years no mention was made 

 of this drug in early Spanish literature, says, page 125, 

 "Such discoveries were indeed poor objects for a ra- 

 pacious and illiterate army, whose every path was 

 marked with cruelty and slaughter." Joseph de Jus- 

 sieu, who visited Loxa in 1739, reports that the bark 

 was "first made known to a Jesuit missionary cured of 

 a fever by an Indian priest of the Sun Worshippers," 

 Fltickiger. Perhaps the latest evidence on this phase 

 of the cinchona subject is that contributed by Henry 



i Brother of Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu: a famous family of scientists. Joseph, 

 in 1735, visited Peru as Botanist, collecting specimens and general information, under an 

 exploring expedition of the French and Spanish governments. In 1739 he visited Loxa 

 in association with La Condamine in the first examination of the Loxa cinchona trees, 

 remaining in South America after La Condamine's departure. In all he spent thirty-four 

 years in laborious, self-sacrificing pioneering research, to be at last robbed by a dishonest 

 servant of his great collection of plants and specimens. In 1771 he returned to France, 

 deprived of reason by the great loss. 



> Dr. H. A. Weddell is accepted as exceptional authority on the cinchona subject. In 

 his voyage to Bolivia and Peru he made special studies of the cinchonas, published many 

 treatises on this history and connected problems, the one issued in Paris (1849) being illus- 

 trated by 34 plates. His name occurs in all historical reviews of Peruvian bark. 



Ralph Irving dedicated his 101-page dissertation to John Eliott, Esq., December 

 16, 1784. It comprised experiments and statistics on "Red and Quill" Peruvian Bark, the 

 Dissertation being awarded first prize by the Harveian Society of Edinburg, 1784. The 

 book was published in 1785. 



