306 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



bark. (Compare my memoir entitled "liber die Cliina- 

 walder" in the " Magazin der Gesellschaft naturforscliender 

 Treunde" zu Berlin, Jahrg. I. 1807, S. 59.) The story of 

 the natives having learnt the virtues of the Cinchona from the 

 lions who " cure themselves of intermittent fevers by gnawing 

 the bark of the China (or Quina) trees," (Hist, de 1'Acad. 

 des Sciences, annee 1738, Paris, 1740, p, 233), appears 

 to be entirely of European origin, and nothing but a monk- 

 ish fable. Nothing is known in the New Continent of the 

 ' ' Lion's fever," for the large so-called American Lion (Pelis 

 concolor), and the small mountain Lion (Puma) whose foot- 

 marks I have seen on the snow, are never tamed and made 

 the subjects of observation ; nor are the different species 

 of Feliiise in either continent accustomed to gnaw the bark 

 of trees. The name of Countess's Powder (Pulvis Comi- 

 tissse), occasioned by the remedy having been distributed by 

 the Countess of Chinchon, was afterwards changed to that 

 of Cardinal's or Jesuit's powder, because Cardinal de Lugo, 

 Procurator-General of the order of the Jesuits, spread the 

 knowledge of this valuable remedy during a journey through 

 Prance, and recommended it to Cardinal Mazarin the more 

 urgently, as the brethren of the order were beginning to pro- 

 secute a lucrative trade in South American Quina-bark which 

 they obtained through their missionaries. It is hardly ne- 

 cessary to remark, that in the long controversy which ensued 

 respecting the good or bad effects of the fever bark, the 

 protestant physicians sometimes permitted themselves to be 

 influenced by religious intolerance and dislike of the 

 Jesuits, 



