CINCHONA 71 



the genus yielding the bark, but by error of spelling he 

 omitted from the name one letter h, making the record 

 cinchona, instead of chinchona. Spanish botanists 

 discovered the error, but Linnaeus having died, the 

 correction was not made. The mutilated name now 

 stands authoritatively, the world over, though resisted 

 unavailingly by many authorities, and had been 

 adopted by our own Pharmacopeia. But regardless 

 of the lost letter h, the Countess of Chinchon has not 

 lost the gratitude of the world. 



EUROPEAN HISTORY OF CINCHONA. Here we find, 

 interwoven, the story of commercial greed, and the 

 efforts of the self-sacrificing pioneer; antagonisms of 

 religious sects, and rivalries of nations; distractions bred 

 by medical ethics and personal hatred within pro- 

 fessional ranks. 



That the Countess of Chinchon took the drug to 

 Spain in a spirit of pure service to humanity, is incon- 

 trovertible. That the Jesuit Fathers independently, 

 perhaps simultaneously, made the same humane offer- 

 ing in Italy, is likewise accepted by this writer. As 

 already recorded, Ralph Irving states, p. 14, that "It 

 was known in Rome in the year 1639, and that, in the 

 year following, John (Juan) de Viga, physician to a 

 Vice Queen in Peru, established it in Spain at an hun- 

 dred crowns a pound." Since de Vigo (spelled elswhere 

 Vega) was the physician who treated the Countess, 

 it is evident that he hastened to Spain with the new 

 discovery. That the Jesuits were not less active is 

 demonstrated by the fact that Cardinal de Lugo, 1 



1 Cardinal de Lugo, a Spanish priest, was born at Madrid in 1583. He was made a 

 Cardinal in Rome, 1643. His interest in cinchona was pronounced and served to further 

 the term Jesuits' bark. His free distribution of the new agent to cure malaria, as well as 

 his authoritative influence in its commerce by apothecaries, gave to the powder the name 

 Cardinal de Lugo Powder. 



