JESUITS-BARK. PERUVIAN-BARK. 149 



equally successful. The use of this excellent medicine, however, 

 was very little known till about the year 1(538, when a signal cure 

 having been performed by it on the Spanish viceroy's lady, the 

 Countess del Cinchon, at Lima, it came into general use, and hence 

 was distinguished by the appellation pulvis comitissse, or the 

 Countess's powder; also called, cortex china china, orchinchina; 

 kina kina, or kinkina; and quina quina, or quinquina. On the 

 recovery of the Countess she distributed a large quantity of the 

 bark to the Jesuits, in whose hands it acquired still greater repu. 

 tation, and by them it was first introduced into Europe, and 

 thence called cortex, or pulvis jesuitiens, pulvis patrum; and also 

 Cardinal de Lugo's powder, because that charitable prelate bought 

 a large quantity of it at a great expense for the use of the religious 

 poor at Rome. 



This bark is brought to us in pieces of different sizes, some 

 rolled up into short thick quills, and others flat : the outside is 

 brownish, and generally covered in part with a whitish moss : the 

 inside is of a yellowish reddish or rusty iron colour. The best sort 

 breaks close and smooth, and proves friable between the teeth : the 

 inferior kinds appear when broken of a woody texture, and in 

 chewing separate into fibres. The former pulverizes more easily 

 than the latter, and looks, when powdered, of a light brownish 

 colour resembling that of cinnamon, or somewhat paler. It has a 

 slight smell, approaching as it were to mustiness, yet so much of the 

 aromatic kind as not to be disagreeable. Its taste is considerably 

 bitter, astringent, very durable in the mouth, and accompanied with 

 some degree of aromatic warmth, but not sufficient to prevent its 

 being ungrateful." 



Besides this bark, that of several other species of cinchona have 

 been recommended for medical use by different authors, especially 

 the cortex peruvianus ruber, or red bark ; also that of the cinchona 

 caribcea, or the Jamaica bark ; that of cinchona floribunda produced 

 at St. Lucie ; and that of two or three other species discovered at 

 Santa Fe. The first of these " is in much larger and thicker pieces 

 than the common, most of the pieces are concave, though not rolled 

 together like the quilled bark. They break short, like the best 

 common bark, and appear evidently composed of three layers. The 

 outer is thin, rugged, frequently covered with a mossy substance, 

 and of a reddish brown colour. The middle is thicker, more com- 



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