THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [January 2, i883. 
tained. All this on the assumption that the chief ac- 
tion of nitrogen is to form leaf and that of phosphates 
to form fruit. 

QUININE: SMALL V. LARGE DOSES. 
London, Dec. 2nd, 1887. 
It so chanced that, being in company with Mr. 
Thomas Christy, the wellknown drug importer, a 
few days back, it occurred to me to mention in 
connection with some matter or other that came 
under our discussion, my own experiences in the 
use of quinine. My statement to the effect that 
as the result of that experience I altogether dis- 
believed in the efficiency of the small doses of 
the drug usually administered, awoke in Mr. 
Christy an immediate interest, and he at once 
asked me on what ground I had come to such a 
conclusion. In reply I told him that many years 
back a severe attack of fever wholly prostrated me, 
and that treatment persued by a wellknown doctor 
in Ceylon for several months wholly failed to 
eradicate it, although quinine was taken by me 
under his advice at least three times a day. 
Finding his treatment altogether useless, Dr. ■ 
advised me to try a change to the hill country. 
The very first night of my arrival at Nuwara 
Eliya the fever returned with as great violence 
as before, and I sent a messenger off in haste for 
the Military Surgeon then quartered there. On 
his joining me, the question as to previous treat- 
ment was immediately put, and my new adviser 
quite laughed at the idea that the ounces of qui- 
nine I had been made to swallow could have had 
any effect in eradicating a fever of so serious a 
type as I had suffered from. He at once called 
for a glass of sherry, and to my surprize, — and, 
it must be said, horror — put half a teaspoonful of 
sulphate of quinine into it. The decoction was 
almost as thick as mud, but down it had to go. 
" You 're to take another like that directly you 
wake in the morning," was then said to me, " and 
I will come and see you about 10 o'clock, but 
I don't suppose you will want me to do so again." 
1 repeated the dose as directed, and surely enough 
the fever left me never to return, though within 
a week from its doing so I traversed the whole 
of the malarious country between Nuwara Eiiya 
and Batfcicaloa, merely taking rather lighter doses 
of quinine early in the morning to ward off the 
possible effects of the unhealthy country I was 
passing through. Mr. Christy was so struck by 
this tale of my personal experience that he got 
me to put it into writing, and submitted it, as I 
have since learnt to several home experts, among 
them being Messrs. Howard, the well-known quinine 
manufacturers. Mr. Howard said he well knew 
that the doses of sulphate of quinine as given 
were ridioulously small, and that he had 
of late advocated their being largely in- 
creased, but that he had never had direct 
evidence before of such large doses as half a 
teaspoonful being prescribed. I was asked if I 
could furnish any further evidence of the beneficial 
application of such quantities of quinine. In reply 
I furnished details of two cases in which my 
advice had been followed with perfectly marvellous 
results. One of these was an officer who had 
contracted malarious fever at Chatham, and when 
I saw him a twelve-months after his leaving 
that place, it recurred daily with undiminished 
violence. I counselled his taking half a teaspoon- 
ful of Howard's sulphate in a wine-glass of 
brandy and water every morning before he got up. 
He was cured in less than a week, and has ex- 
perienced no relapse since then. The second case 
was of a more recent date. A friend, a lady who 
had suffered much from fever in the tropics and who 
I chanced to njeet only after she had been more 
J than two years in England, told me she never felt 
free of fever. Even in the hottest day in our late 
summer she always felt, as she expressed it, "chilled 
through and through." An internal "ague always 
distressed her and affected both her appetite and 
power of sleep. I told her to take about a third 
of a teaspoonful of Howard's sulphate of quinine 
before she took her morning cup of tea in bed, and 
in the same vehicle as above described, viz., brandy 
and water. After the third morning the feeling of 
cold and ague entirely left my new patient, and 
by perseverance with the treatment, though 
with largely reduced doses, she has been enabled 
to bear the severe cold we have lately been ex- 
periencing with no more discomfort than other 
Englishwomen who have never been in the tropics 
can do. I deem it best to let you know what I 
had to impart to my questioners, because there is 
reason to believe from the correspondence which 
ensued upon my interview that some effort will be 
made to diffuse the knowledge of the effects of 
such treatment very widely. What first stimu- 
lated Mr. Christy's interest in my narrative was 
the fact that in dealing with a very noxious drug, 
invaluable for certain complaints but very dangerous 
if used by inexperienced persons, he had been 
counselled to restrain its use to the very early morn- 
ing, before the person taking it rose from bed. 
He told me he had never heard of such a dose as 
half-a-teaspoonful of quinine being taken without 
very distressing results, and there was a striking 
analogy, he said, between my experience and what he 
had heard about the administration of the drug in 
which he was personally interested. He lost no time 
in mentioning the facts named by me to those in- 
terested in the drug trade. Messrs. Howard, of course, 
might well be expected to view such a matter with 
favouring interest because of the probability of 
inducing practitioners at home to use quinine more 
largely than they do. It is a fact that it is rarely 
used in England save as a tonic for weakly persons, 
children especially. As I am informed, the treat- 
ment with the mild doses prescribed by home 
doctors lasts over such a length of time that quinine 
is regarded somewhat in the light of a failure in 
domestic practice. Now if Messrs. Howard can 
persuade the medical men in the fenny counties of 
England to increase their doses after the fashion 
recommended by me because of my own experience 
they will succeed in greatly stimulating the use of 
the drug, and of course that is an object they as 
manufacturers must have strongly in view. What 
will be good for them will be good for Ceylon. 
What you need to make your cinchona cultivation 
a paying thing instead of a losing one is the 
popularization of the use of its product. I have long 
felt certain that this could never come about 
so long as medical men restrict their application 
of it to the tiny doses they only think it 
safe to employ, and any course which will 
awaken them to the fallacy of their present 
treatment is sure to have beneficial reflex effect 
on the industry of Ceylon. I hope soon to hear 
of the steps Mr. Christy and Messrs. Howard may 
purpose to take in this matter. I am assured such 
are in contemplation, and it will be curiou3 and 
interesting to learn if they produce effect in the 
direction desired, that of increasing the consumption 
of quinine. People in England don't know, indeed, 
what quinine can do for them. They would soon 
rind out what its real powers are if the suggestions 
I have given receive any wide adoption. — London 
Cor. 
CEYLCN TEA AT GLASGOW. 
The following Circular has been issued by the 
Ceylon Committee of the Glasgow Exhibition to all 
Firms in London interested in Ceylon, Mr. Shand 
