THE BLACKTHORN, 



245 



On the wliole^ tiie Blackthorn, in its natural 

 state, possesses few valuable qualities. It cer- 

 tainly does not recommend itself to our favourable 

 consideration on the score of beauty, and being 

 employed to adulterate some substances, and as 

 an indifferent substitute for others, we are in- 

 clined to suspect its honesty ; and as it is, more- 

 over, a great enemy to the agriculturist, we do 

 not scruple to include it among the ^* thorns and 

 thistles " of the primaaval curse. Yet, strange to 

 say, as if to be both a memorial of the curse, and 

 of the implied promise, that the industry of man 

 should not be without effect in mitigating the 

 consequences of that curse, the austere sloe has 

 been converted by human skill and labour into 

 the luscious plum, one of our most valued fruits. 

 It is a well-known fact, that the thorns of several 

 fruit trees, the Vv'ild Pear for instance, disappear 

 under cultivation : the variety of the Blackthorn, 



vians learned the use of this bark by observing certain animals 

 anected with intermittent complaints instinctively led to it : whilst 

 others say that a Peruvian having an ague, was cm-ed by happening 

 to drink of a pool which, from some trees havino- fallen into it, tasted 

 of Cinchona. It acts powerfully as an astnngent and tonic ; and as 

 an antiseptic it is so efficacious as to preserve from decay not only 

 animal solids but animal fluids Avhen entirely detached from the 

 living body. But its principal application is to the cure of intermit- 

 tent' fevers, where it rarely fails of success. The most valuable 

 species of Cinchona are C. micrantha and C. condarrdnea. Bark is 

 not now administered in its native state so frequently as it formerly 

 was, it having been discovered in 1820 that the active principle re- 

 siding in it might be separated in the form of a crystallized salt by 

 combining it chemically with sulphuric acid. In this state it is called 

 Sulpaate of Qidrdn, or simply Quinin. Its taste, like that of the bark 

 itself, is excessively bitter : it is now generally employed as a sub- 

 stitute for bark, of which it possesses the medicinal virtues with this 

 great advantage, that a few grains of the salt are equivalent to an 

 ounce of the bark. The name Quinin is a corruption of Qainqidna, 

 another form of the word Ciyidtona. 



