CHAPTER XI 



DRUGS 



Cinchona. Cinchona succinibra, C. officinalis^ and other 

 species 



Cinchona trees, from which the important drug quinine is Habitat, 

 obtained, are natives of the mountain forests of New Granada, 

 Bolivia and Peru. The trees are mostly found in the valleys 

 of the western slopes of the great Andean range of mountains 

 at elevations of from 4,000 to 12,000 feet above the sea. The History of 

 medicinal properties of cinchona bark were undoubtedly ^^^ ^^^' 

 known to the earlier inhabitants of these regions, and the 

 Jesuits who followed the Spanish conquerors of South 

 America learnt its use from the natives of these countries. 

 Its powerful curative effects in malarial fevers first became a 

 matter of notoriety in the year 1638 when the drug was ad- 

 ministered to the Countess of Chinchon, the wife of the 

 Viceroy of Peru, and cured her of a fever that baffled the 

 skill of the Spanish physicians. The Jesuits kept the nature The Jesuits, 

 of the drug a secret, but they carried it into Europe, where 

 it became known as Jesuit's bark, and later on as Peruvian 

 bark. Until within a comparatively recent period the drug 

 was given in the form of the powdered bark, and of tinc- 

 tures and extracts made from it ; but now the active princi- 

 ples, called alkaloids — the chief one of which is the well- Alkaloids of 

 known quinine — are used in preference to the bark, and their ^ ® ^"^ • 

 consumption in the world is enormous. Formerly all the 



