36 Observations and Experiments on Peruvian Bark. 



oxysms ; by which treatment he cured the disease as effectu- 

 ally and as speedily as with the quinine : of which twenty 

 seven cases, there were sixteen tertian, nine quotidian and 

 two quartan. He remarked further, that the cinchonine has 

 properties less irritating than those of quinine, and that con- 

 sequently its employment should be more general, and pre- 

 ferred in all simple cases. I believe few or no experiments 

 have been made by the physicians of this country, upon the 

 medical properties of the cinchonine ; it consequently must 

 be very little known by them from their own experience, but 

 it certainly is a medicine which deserves at least a trial. 



From the preceding description, the several species of 

 Peruvian bark most commonly met with at the present day, 

 may be readily recognised, as the physical characters are 

 prominent and distinctive in each variety ; after however se- 

 lecting the best species of Peruvian bark, by the several dis- 

 tinguishing and specific characters, one very important ad- 

 ventitious condition yet remains to be investigated. It is a 

 fact established beyond controversy, that age is a very pow- 

 erful agent in deteriorating the active properties of bark, in- 

 somuch that the best species of Peruvian bark when old, is 

 little superior and sometimes even inferior to the carthagena 

 bark when fresh ; hence it is, that large parcels of a superior 

 species of Peruvian bark, which would have commanded 

 two dollars per pound at Cadiz, when fresh, has been offered 

 publicly in this city for one-eighth the sum, twenty five cents, 

 and that without a purchaser ; and which it appears has 

 been operated upon by no other unfavorable circumstance 

 but age. In what manner or by what process age, or rather 

 the circumstances connected with it, act upon bark other 

 than by a combination with oxygen or a volatilization of its 

 active principle, I know not. Fabroni states with truth, 

 that cinchona loses its solubility, and consequently its activ- 

 ity, by long exposure to the air, but does not give his opinion 

 as to the manner in which it is thus affected. I cannot, how- 

 ever, conceive under existing circumstances, how the solubil- 

 ity of Peruvian bark can be diminished, except through the 

 agency of oxygen, and it is by this means the extract of bark, 

 prepared according to the common formulas of our dispensa- 

 tories, is rendered devoid of utility ; for owing to the oxigen- 

 izementof the extractive matter, the solubility of the extract 

 is so diminished during its formation, that scarcely one half 

 is soluble in water. 



