atin’ a 
ON THE MEDICINAL PLANT, CALLED CUICHUNCHULLI. 
name, to a son and daughter of his own, 
who had been suffering severely with le- 
prosy for five or six years. Upon this, M. 
Marcucci waited on that gentleman, who 
informed him that he had tried, without 
success, the Cuichunchulh, obtained both 
in that neighbourhood, and in the colder 
district of Canar; but that his children had 
derived the greatest benefit from some 
which was brought from Riobamba, in 
the province of Chimborazo. In both the 
individuals, sensation has been restored in 
the diseased parts; the ulcers have healed, 
and the joints are become flexible, great 
improvement having also taken place in 
their general health. M. Marcucci satisfied 
himself, by personal inspection, that these 
patients had derived very considerable ad- 
vantage from the exhibition of the Cut- 
chunchulli, though traces still remained in 
their countenances of the frightful malady 
with which they had been stricken. 
Possessed of the above highly valuable 
information, M. Marcucci made immediate 
preparation for visiting Riobamba; and 
though first delayed by the progress of the 
Revolutionary army, and subsequently 
compelled to make his we way over 
chains of mountains covered with eternal 
snow, through dark, miry, and dism 
forests, obliged to climb almost inaccessible 
ights, the descents of which often me- 
naced him with a broken neck, he suc- 
ceeded in reaching Riobamba, a small 
town at the foot of the great volcano of 
Chimborazo. In his way he met with one 
poor woman, whose sufferings had been 
much alleviated by the use of the Chim- 
borazo plant, which her excessive poverty 
alone prevented her from obtaining in such 
quantities as might effect a perfect cure. 
A comparison of the foliage, &c. of the 
plant which she showed him, proved it to 
be identical with that which had produced 
such benefit on Señor Borrero’s children. 
E. 
.. Who procured it for Senor Borrero, as well 
as from tho La + a llected 
ntity of it, which was precious to him, 
281: 
though trifling in amount when compared 
with the expense, trouble, hazard, and 
fatigue that he had incurred for its ac- 
quisition. A longer stay at Riobamba 
would, he believes, have enabled him to 
obtain much more; but, during the whole 
thirty-three days which he passed there, he 
suffered from severe attacks of intermittent 
fever, and was obliged to return to Guaya- 
quil, where he embarked for Payta, thence 
to Panama, and then came hither. Shortly 
after his arrival, he did me the favour to 
place a portion of Cuichunchulli in my 
hands, requesting me to administer it in 
cases of the Mal de San Lazaro, in order 
to ascertain its medicinal powers; and he 
likewise, at my request, sent me an account 
of his voyage, from which I have extracted 
the foregoing particulars. 
M. Marcucci being anxious that my 
trials of his plant should be made as soon 
as possible, his stay in Jamaica being 
limited, I commenced by administering it 
to five of the most diseased Lazars in the 
Cocobay Asylum, and afterwards to two 
other patients, a mulatto woman and a 
white man. I must premise, that the 
quantity of the dried plant which I re- 
ceived, when reduced to powder, did not 
exceed eleven or twelve ounces; that, to 
make it go further, I had the stems and 
leaves ground up with the roots (though I 
have since thought it possible that the me- 
dicinal properties may reside in the roots 
alone); and also that, in consequence 
of M. Marcucci’s being obliged to embark 
sooner than he expected for Maracaybo, 
when he took the remainder of the Cut- 
chunchulli away with him, my trials of 
it were necessarily put a stop to, long ere 
they could be fairly deemed to have 
had sufficient time to produce their full 
results. 
In every one of the patients whom I 
treated. with Cuichunchulli, an improve- 
ment in their condition was almost imme- 
, diately evident; the sensations of heat, 
and painful tension, which always accom- 
pany this direful disease, gave place, more 
or less, to general ease and comfort ; their 
limbs became lighter and more flexible, 
