210 NATURE AND LIFE 



by the natives of those countries when the corregidor of 

 Loxa, in 1638, administered it for the first time to the 

 Countess del Cinchon, the Spanish vice -queen in Peru. 

 This lady was attacked by a very obstinate tertian ague, 

 which the medicine easily conquered. As soon as this 

 wonderful cure was known in the city, the townspeople 

 of Lima sent a deputation to the viceroy, entreating him 

 to give the new drug to the public. A large quantity of 

 quinine was brought from Loxa and Cuenga, which the vice- 

 queen personally distributed among the inhabitants, and 

 which was thenceforth called the countess's powder. A 

 century later, in 1738, La Condamine gave the first com- 

 plete description of the tree which furnishes quinine. His 

 work served Linnaeus as a basis for determining the char- 

 acteristics of the genus, which he called cinchona, in mem- 

 ory of the Countess del Cinchon. In 1640, Del Cinchon 

 went back to Spain, and his physician, Juan del Vego, 

 brought with him a large cargo of the febrifuge bark, which 

 he sold for a high price. The Spanish Jesuits soon made 

 it the subject of profitable commerce, and in that way it 

 entered into the European pharmacopoeia. Yet its employ- 

 ment was not at first very general. In 1679 an English 

 doctor, named Talbot, prescribed a secret remedy for the 

 son of Louis XIV., who suffered from stubborn attacks of 

 intermittent fever. The dauphin rapidly recovered his 

 health, bought Talbot's secret for forty -eight thousand 

 livres, and granted that physician a life annuity. More- 

 over, the remedy, which was merely a tincture of wine of 

 quinine, was made public by the monarch's direction. As 

 was the case with tartar-emetic, Peruvian bark gave rise in 

 the schools to long discussions, in which, a singular fact, 

 political and religious passions interfered ; but quinine 

 triumphed over all opposition, and, thanks to the efforts 

 of Sydenham, Morton, and Torti, all practitioners were 

 soon agreed in acknowledging its beneficial qualities. 



