54 Observations on a neio variety of Peruvian Bark, &/-€. 



The quality of bark depends no doubt, on the proportion of quinine 

 and cinchonine which they respectively contain. The separation 

 of these alkalies, therefore, affords a very valuable test to discover the 

 qualities of different species of bark. Different barks, however, 

 produce with acids various proportions of these two salts. Thus we 

 find the Calisaya produces most quinine, the Loxa most cinchonine, 

 and the red or oblongifolia yields both these salts in nearly equal propor- 

 tions. What is their comparative value is yet a subject of controversy ; 

 a considerable majority of practitioners however, are in favor of the qui- 

 nine, perhaps because most of them have not had an opportunity of em- 

 ploying the cinchonine. Dr. Paris goes so far as to state that cin- 

 chonine is only one fifth as active as quinine; others contend for 

 the reverse. An interesting paper read before the Academy of 

 Medicine at Paris, was published in the Bulletin des Sciences 

 Medicales, for November, 1825, in which M. Bally states that he 

 has experimented upon the sulphate of cinchonine, with a view to 

 determine its febrifuge qualities. He administered this sulphate in 

 twenty seven cases of intermittent fevers of difierent types, in doses 

 of 2 grain pills, giving three or four in the interval of paroxysms, by 

 vi^hich treatment he cured the disease as effectually, 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 consequently its employment should be more general, and 

 preferred in all simple case. I believe few or no experiments have 

 been made by the physicians of this country upon the medical prop- 

 erties of the cinchonine, and it must consequently be very little known 

 to them from their own experience. It is most certainly a medicine 

 which deserves at least, a trial. 



The sulphate of quinine, as generally termed, is not a perfectly 

 neutral salt, being in the state of a sub-sulphate, and is only partly 

 soluble in water. Its exhibition in this fluid is rendered much more 

 eligible, by the addition of a drop of sulphuric acid to each grain of 

 the salt, which makes a perfectly transparent solution, and which I 

 think, from its obvious advantages, must entirely supersede the com- 

 mon formula of gum and sugar; a few grains of citric or tartaric acid 

 will have the same efiect as the sulphuric acid, in dissolving the qui- 

 nine, and these acids have been preferred by some. Dr. Paris states 

 that he lately saw a prescription in which the salt was directed to be 

 rubbed with a few grains of cream of tartar, and then to be dissolved 



