THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON; 



ABRIDGED. 



XXXIl. On the Success of the Bark of the fVillow in the Cure of Agues. By 

 the Rev. Edm. Stone, of Chipping-Norton, Oxfordshire. Dated April 

 25th, 1763. p. 195. 



About 6 years prior to the above date, Mr. S. tasted the willow bark, and was 

 surprised at its extraordinary bitterness, which immediately raised in him a sus- 

 picion of its having the properties of the Peruvian bark. As this tree delights 

 in a moist or wet soil, where agues chiefly abound, the general maxim that many 

 natural maladies carry their cures along with them, or that their remedies lie not 

 far from their causes, was so very apposite to this particular case, that he could 

 not help applying it; and that this might be the intention of Providence he owns 

 had some weight with him. The plenty of this bark furnished him, in his spe- 

 culative disquisitions on it, with an argument both for and against these imaginary 

 qualities of it ; for on one hand, as intermittents are very common, it was rea- 

 sonable to suppose, that what was designed for their cure should be as common 

 and as easy to be procured. But then, on the other hand, it seemed probable, 

 that if there was any considerable virtue in this bark, it must have been disco- 

 vered from its plenty. His curiosity prompted him to look into the dispensatories 

 and books of botany, and examine what they said concerning it; but there it ex- 

 isted only by name. He could not find, that it ever had any place in pharmacy, 

 or any such qualities as he suspected, ascribed to it by the botanists. 



However he determined to make some experiments with it ; and for this pur- 

 pose he gathered that summer near 1 lb. weight of it, which he dried in a bag, 

 on the outside of a baker's oven, for more than 3 months, at which time it was 

 to be reduced to a powder by pounding and sifting, after the manner that other 

 barks are pulverised. It was not long before he had an opportunity of making 

 a trial of it; but being an entire stranger to its nature, he gave it in very small 

 quantities, he thinks it was about 20 grains of the powder at a dose, and repeated 



VOL. XII. B 



