May i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
727 
Extension discussion; it is enough to drive one wild to 
see tho same arguments repeated year after year. I 
can only explain tho matter in one way, and that 
is, that four-tifths of those who write and speak 
about a narrow-gauge line know nothing about 
the matter, but they like to see themselves in 
print. Well I I do hope, however, that ere long 
you will get your Extension, and that on the 
existing gauge ; here the Dutch only allow the 
heads of firms or departments to speak, hence, 
although they are Slow to move, there are no 
endless discussions when tho time comes, the thing 
is done. There is one thing, however, that 1 will 
give you people, especially planters, credit for, and 
that is, unanimity in blowing your own trumpet, 
and quite right, too ; surely, it is time some of 
you were making your fortunes. At different periods 
you have produced the finest coffee, cinchona, 
cocoa, cardamoms and coconut oil in the world, 
and now you are going in for the teas : the finest 
tea, tobacco and trout. Oh 1 where, oh I where, 
will it all end ? Your tea, however, deserves well, 
and is much appreciated here by those who drink 
it (but, unfortunately, there are not many of them), 
Tho trout, I trust, will multiply aud give exceeding 
joy to many ardent sportsmen. Tobacco, I trust 
you will forgive me, if 1 write and say that I am 
very, very sceptical about its proving a success in 
your fruitful isle. This you will put down to 
jealousy, but not a bit of it. Here, I am sure, 
we can hold our own for many years to come ; 
and, thougii two Deli men are mid to have taken 
up land in (Jeylon (and both of them are hard- 
headed fellows), I fancy .they will find the pro- 
ducing of tobacco to pay, a hard nut to cruck in 
Ceylon, and the nut they will have to crack with 
you is labour. If you will allow those gentlemen 
to introduce Chinese labour, there may be a chance 
of success, but with the mighty " Kling" or Tamil 
you might as well ask them to make " silk purses 
out of sows' lugs," as get a Tamil to sort tobacco 
rnoi'KKLY. I shall be glad if I am mistaken, and, 
after all, perhaps, tobacco is to be cultivated in 
a quite different style from here. Our prices keep 
up favourably and fortunes are made every year, 
but unlortunutely all do not participate in these 
fortunes, or the writer of this would not be here. 
Yes, "Peppercorn," over RGOO per acre has been 
netted here, over and over again in estates ranging 
from 100 to <>00 acres, that is about the maximum 
cultivated here ' on any one estate in one yei.r. 
" The Deli Matschappy " paid over 800 per cent 
last year. Think of that, ye planters of Ceylon, 
does it make you wish you were all tobacco planters? 
Eli ! [Our correspondent should tell us all about 
tho Deli mode of cultivating tobacco, or send us 
tho local Dutch manual on) the subject. — Ed. t. A.] 
QUININE FOB CHuLEBA AND IN HEBOIC 
DOSES. 
We call attention to a letter from Southern 
India on the use of quinine as a preventive for 
cholera and ul on tho advantage of " Heroic 
doses" in cases of fever. When cholera is epid- 
emic many persons Buffet from abnormal symptoms, 
especially of the digestive organs. Indued, what 
is culled the preliminary diarrhiea of cholera often 
gives winning for days boforo un attack. Tho 
value of quinine ai a prophylactic, therefore, — 
in prosomug tone or restoring it to tho system, — 
can be easily understood. Something moro is 
wauled, however, than one medical man's persuasion 
by way of evidence of special benefit. 
What .Mr. Martin has told un, however, about 
"Herota doses,'' together with recent information 
from homo, induces u:i once more to return to tho 
subject; for there ran be no doubt that the im- 
portance of it to the island industry of cinchona 
planting fully warrants the attention we are desirou 
of attracting to the topic We can quite under- 
stand that a paper devoted solely to professional 
matters, such as the Lancet, and having for its 
subscribers mainly gentlemen engaged in the practice 
of medicine and surgery, should desire, before 
admitting to its columns the discussion of an 
innovation upon usual practice, to have the im- 
primatur of qualified medical men, and we feel 
sure no one will adjudge blame to the conductors 
of such a paper for the resolution expressed on 
this point. But it certainly seems strange, that, 
common as the practice has now become of 
administering quinine in far larger doses than 
have been formerly used, such an imprimatur should 
not be forthcoming. What can be the reason that 
among the many practitioners, Englishmen in the 
tropics and Germans on the Continent, whom 
correspondence in our columns following upon 
previous writings on this subject showed to be 
converts to the new treatment, none have been 
found to write their experiences and advocate their 
theory in the home medical journals ? We fear 
the answer must be found to this query in the too 
strict conservatism of the noble profession of the 
healing art. There is perhaps a tendency among 
that body te regard innovators on old-established 
practice as being men too inclined to wander out 
of the safe path of routine practice ; and yet it 
is to such men sometimes, men who have been 
willing to incur that obloquy, that we owe many 
of the greatest medical discoveries of modern times. 
We can recollect that when the celebrated Simpson 
of Edinburgh first ventilated his discovery of the 
effect of chloroform as an anesthetic and advocted 
its free administration, he was by a large body 
of the medical profession, regarded with a jeal- 
ous eye, and his proposed practice stigmatized as 
a dangerous empiricism. Had this great bene- 
factor of the human race occupied a less distin- 
guised position i'i his profession than he did at 
the time he announced Lis discovery to the world, 
we can realize how he would have been " pooh- 
poohed " to use a homely expression, by every 
young student of the medical hospitals. It is, 
possible, to the want of a man of similar profes- 
sional standing to take up the question we are 
discussing, that we must attribute the disinclin- 
ation of the home medical journals to direct atten- 
tion to it. 
We should have thought that Messrs. How- 
ards' position might have overcome such a dis- 
inclination ; but wo can readily realize that a 
firm of manufacturers would hesitate to urge a 
recommendation which uiight savour of having 
a personal pecuniary interest to themselves. In a 
certain degree, though perhaps not to an equal 
extent, the position of Mr. Thomas Christy as 
a drug importer might operate in the same way, 
and unless therefore those who, with the genllomou 
abovo referred to, are interesting themselves in 
this matter can find some professional man [of 
repute to put himself forward as tho advocate of 
tho practice, it is possible that their i fforts will 
have but small result. But we fail to see why 
someone or other of the doctors resident among 
ourselves, who may be acquainted in his own 
practico with the beneficial results of tho treatment 
with large doses of quinine, should not step into 
tho breach. No doubt our local 1 modi OXM ' may 
have a not unnatural dread of being thought to 
bo presuming by the magnates of tho profession. 
Wo trust that such a feeling will not, however, 
long operate to induce thorn to keep silence ns 
to a matter which wo feel assured h of cousidcr- 
