456 Peruvian-bark Trees and their Transplantation. 



Cinchona, and until a recent period no attempt was made to 

 correct it. 



The Jesuits in their wanderings through South America 

 became well acquainted with bark, and in 1670 they sent 

 parcels of it to Rome, whence it was distributed by Cardinal 

 de Lugo amongst the members of their society throughout 

 Europe, and obtained the name of Jesuit's bark, or Cardinal's 

 bark. It was in consequence of this patronage that bigoted 

 Protestants refused to avail themselves of a medicine favoured 

 by the Boman Catholics, just as staunch Catholics objected 

 to the use of beei*, an infusion of barley flavoured with hop, 

 instead of sweet gale, and other herbs, as in the case of ale, 

 because, as an old song has it, "with this same beer came in 

 heresy here/' At the time of Cromwell's death from ague, the 

 use of Peruvian bark was actually known in London. In 1678 

 Louis XIV. bought the secret of preparing quiuaquina from Sir 

 Robert Talbot, an English physician, for two thousand louis 

 d'ors, a title, and a large pension, and from that time down- 

 wards, the use of this medicine, though often and violently 

 opposed by practitioners, gradually made its way into every 

 country and all circles of society. The only people who now 

 entertain any prejudice against its administration are the natives 

 of those very countries from which we obtain our supplies. The 

 medical men of Guayaquil, for instance, must call it by some 

 other name in their prescriptions, or else patients object to 

 taking it. The Spanish people throughout America have a 

 deeply-rooted theory that all diseases are referable to the 

 influence of either heat or cold, and, confounding cause and 

 effect, they pronounce all fevers to proceed from heat. Bark 

 they justly believe to be very heating, and hence their prejudice 

 against its application in fever — a prejudice which seems to 

 have communicated itself even to the Indians. 



Until the present century Peruvian bark was administered 

 in its crude state; and it was not until 1816 that a Portuguese 

 surgeon, Dr. Gomez, succeeded in isolating the febrifugal prin- 

 ciple, hinted at by Dr. Duncan at Edinburgh, and named by the 

 former Chinchonine. But the final discovery of quinine is due 

 to two French chemists, Pelletier and Caventou, in 1820, who 

 considered it a vegetable alkaloid analogous to morphine and 

 strychnine, and they afterwards found that the febrifugal prin- 

 ciple was seated in two alkaloids, quinine and chinchonine, 

 separate or together. In 1829 Pelletier discovered a third 

 alkaloid, aricine, derived from CJiinchona pubescens, and at pre- 

 sent of no known medicinal value. The different organic con- 

 stituents of Chinchona bark are : — 



Quina . . Kinovic acid. 



Chinchonid . Chinchona red. 



