PERUVIAN BARK 37 



against these trees being carried off from their 

 lonely forests on the slopes of the Andes. 



As far back as 1639 the Countess of Chinchon, 

 wife of the Spanish Viceroy, had brought 

 Peruvian bark to Spain, to the relief of ague- 

 stricken labourers on her husband's estate ; 

 Jesuit missionaries had brought it to Rome, 

 where it was much needed ; Robert Talbot, 

 an Apothecary, had cured Charles IPs ague 

 with the powdered bark, and made his fortune. 

 But it was two centuries before the living 

 plants could be imported into countries where 

 they would grow into trees. 



Many explorers tried and failed one was 

 murdered. Jussieu, the French botanist, pro- 

 cured plants, and lost them in a storm at the 

 mouth of the Amazon, after the long river 

 journey. Dr. Royle 1 in 1839, m l %53> anc * 

 again in 1856, when he was dying, petitioned, 

 in vain, the old East India Company to 

 introduce them into India. 



Meantime, Cinchona forests were diminish- 

 ing, and quinine, the important constituent 

 of bark, which a French chemist had succeeded 

 in extracting, remained at a price beyond the 

 reach of the greater part of mankind. 



In 1852 the Dutch Government sent an 

 expedition to bring plants to Java. Few of the 

 young trees survived the voyage, and those of 

 a kind which produced little quinine. But the 

 Dutch persevered, and had the honour of being 

 the first to establish a Cinchona plantation in 

 the Eastern world. 



It was not until 1862 that Sir Clements 



1 Author of Botany of the Himalaya. 



