522 The Andes and the Amazons. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



Brazilian Drugs, Dyes, Gums, and Textile Plants. 



The valley of the Amazons is an infinite field for the 

 discovery of useful vegetable products. Many unknown- 

 principles are waiting to enter our materia medica, or to 

 advance tlie industrial sciences. Chance has revealed a 

 few beneficial properties; but only thorough investigation 

 and systematic experiment can develop the region. Many 

 an herb of mysterious virtue is known to the Indians, but 

 we can not rely upon them. In fact, only the Indians in 

 contact with the whites use direct remedies : among the 

 wild tribes, it is the physician, not the patient, who takes 

 the medicine, since they hold that every ailment is the 

 work of an evil one who must be conjured. Even among 

 the Christianized half-castes of Tarapoto, Dr. Spruce found 

 this ridiculous receipt : " Chew a piece of the gum-resin 

 called sonitonio, place it in the hollow of the hand, and 

 with it rub the legs of the sick person from the knees 

 downward, and end by whistling between all the toes." 



Cinchona, or " Peruvian Bark," the foremost of febri- 

 fuges, is collected at the sources of the Upper Maranon, 

 Huallaga, Ucayali, and Beni. The region extends over 29 

 degrees of latitude, and describes a vast curve commencing 

 with the nineteenth parallel south, and continuing gener- 

 ally along the east slope at the altitude of Y500 feet. The 

 valuable Red Bark {C. succirubra) is peculiar to the Pa- 



