THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [May x, 1888, 
for fever. The presumption therefore appeared to 
be that the position claimed for quinine as the only 
real febrifuge yielded by cinchona bark would prove 
on Careful examination, to be untenable; and that 
the other two alkaloids would also be found, to have 
value as frebrifuges. For the purpose of investigat- 
ing this point, Commissions of medical officers of all 
three Presidencies were formed during the years 180o' 
to 1868. These Commissions were.furnished with sup- 
plies of the three alkaloids, pure end unmixed, and 
after vary extensive trials, their unanimous verdict 
was that cinchonidiue and cinchoniDe are both excel- 
lent febrifuges, the former not much less efficient 
than quinine itself. 
4. Having thus established the value of cinchoni- 
dine and cincboninp, the next point to be settled was 
how best to utilize the large stocks of these alkaloids 
contained in the bark of the trees growing in the 
Government plantations. To do this Messrs, Broughtou 
and Wood, two professional chemists, were engaged 
in England and were located as Government quino- 
logists on the Nilgiri and Sikkim plantations respec- 
tively. Mr. Broughton the (Nilgiri quinologist), as 
the result of his labours invented a preparation of 
red-baik which he called Amorphous Quinine, and 
which contained all the alkaloids of red bark in the 
form of a u on-crystalline powder. Of this amorphous 
quinine no arge amou it was ever manufactured ; and 
its preparat on ceased when Mr. Broughton resigned 
the service of Government. Mr. Wood who did not 
arrive at the Sikkim plantation until 1873, concluded 
after much observation aad experiment that the best 
way of utilizing the red bark was to make from it the 
reparation so well known as cinchona Febrifuge, 
his, like Mr Broughfcon's, is in the form of a powder, 
and contains the three chief alkaloids of red-bark 
mixed in the proportions in which they naturally 
occur in the bark. Cinchona Febrifuge was then a 
perfectly new product unknown to pharmacy, and it 
was not clear how it might be accepted by the 
medical profession. 
Mr. Wood therefore adopted for its manufacture 
on a small tentative scale a simple and inexpensive 
acid and alkali process, requiring only the rudest 
apparatus. He intended, should the product be 
favourably accepted by the medical profession, to 
replace this simple process by one more efficient 
but more complicated, and involving the extensive 
use of spirit. During the first year of its manufacture 
(1874 75) only 48 pounds of this new drug were 
issued. At first and chiefly owing to a misappre- 
hension as to the proper dose in which it should 
be given some prejudice existed against this drug. 
In 1875-76 however 1,940 poucds of it were con- 
suncud, and its consumption so materially increased 
during succeeding years that up to the present date 
no less than 87,704 pounds have been issued from 
the factory. A preparation similar to and avowedly 
an imitation of cinchona Febrifuge is now made and 
sold in London under the name of Quinetum, but 
until Cinchona Febrifuge had first been manufactured 
in Iudia no similar preparation existed. It is there- 
fore a remedy for wliioh, the world at large is in- 
debted to India. Cinchona Febrifuge has been used 
in India as a substitute for quinine. It has been so 
used by Government in its own medical institutions 
aud it has been freely offered to the Indian public, 
Its sale has, however, been restricted to the limits 
of India, From the beginning and until now its price 
has uniformly been sixteen rupees eight annas per 
pound, and in this respect it has presented a con- 
trast to quinine, the price of which has fluctuated 
considerably rising at one time as high as 16s. 6d. 
per ounce. According, however, to statistics prepared 
by an English pharmacologist the average pri :e of 
quinine in London from 1875 to 1887 (the period 
during which Cinchona Febrifuge has been in use) 
has been 8s. 4|d por ounce. The sterling value 
(calculated at this average rate) of 87,704 pounds 
of quinine would be £587,616, while this quantity of 
febrifuge has actually boen delivered to the Indiau 
consumer for the sum of Rs. 1,447,116. The actual 
saving to Iudia has therefore been very great, and 
the capital account of the plantations (about eleven 
lakhs of rupees) has been covered several times. 
5. The preponderai.ee of red-bark tree* iu the 
Sikkim plantation while he was attached to it naturally 
induced Mr. Wood to give his attention first to the 
utilization of their bark. But he by no means neg- 
lected the quinine barks. Of these barks only one— 
Calisuya and its variety Leclgeriaua, — really thrives in 
Sikkim, the Crown bark or Cinchona officinalis tree 
having proved a comparative failure. Mr. Wood 
made many experiments in the manufacture of 
pure Sulphate of quiuine, but up to the time of his 
retirement for private reasons, from the service of 
Government in 1879 he had not succeeded in dis- 
covering an efficient process. Mr. Wood was of opinion 
that good quinine barks could be grown in Sikkim, and 
that it might be possible to extract the quinine from 
them on the plantation. Dr. King, the Superintendent 
of the Plantation, was very ttrongly of this opinion, 
and in 1875 he recommended that all further planting of 
red-bark trees should cease. This recommendation 
was not acted upon for some time. Full effect hag, 
however, been given to it of recent years, and 
succiritbra has been supplanted by calisaya to the 
extent of about a million trees. The retirement of 
Mr. Wood did not put an end to the experiments on 
the manufacture of quinine. Mr. Gammie, the resid- 
ent manager, took the matter up with energy, and 
encouraged and assisted by Dr. King he carried on a 
long series of experiments on an acid and alkali pro- 
cess of manufacture by which he succeeded in produc- 
ing excellent quinine. He never, however, succeeded 
in recovering much more than half of the amount 
contained in the bark upon which he operated. The 
acid and alkali process had therefore to be abandoned 
as wasteful and inefficient. A process depending on 
the maceration of the bark in spirit was next 
tried ; but after much experiment it was in turn 
abandoned. During a visit which he paid to Hol- 
land in 1884, Dr. King acquired some hints as to 
a process of extraction by means of oil. And now, 
benefiting by the advice of some chemical friends, 
Mr. Gammie has been able to perfect this process, 
with the result that the whole of the quinine in 
yellow bark can be extraoted in a form undistin- 
guisbable either chemically or physically from the 
best brands of European manufacture. This can be 
done so cheaply that as long as the supply of bark 
is kept up quinine need never cost Government 
much above twenty-five rupees per pound. It is true 
that at the present moment quinine is obtainable 
in the open market at rates not very different 
from this ; but that is due to entirely exceptional 
causes. For some time back the Ceylon (planters 
have been up rooting their Chinchona trees both to 
save them from disease, and to make way for tea plant- 
ing which appears now to be becoming the principal 
industry of that colony ; and cinchona bark has 
actually been sold in London below the cost of its 
production in Ceylon. Indeed, so far as the fall 
in price gone, that South American bark has been 
practically driven out of the market. This is a state 
of matter which cannot continue very long, and 
which is not likely to recur. In the ordinary course 
therefore the quinine might be expected soon to 
rise to what may be considered its normal price. 
The object ef making public the process now dis- 
covered is to check this rise in the prioe of a drug 
of such general utility. 
6. The cordial thanks of Government are due to 
Dr. King and his coadjutors — and especially to Mr. 
Gammie — for the patience, energy and resource 
displayed by them in their long search for the best 
method of utilizing these valuable medicinal barks. 
The Government has -no desire to make a profit 
by the discovery, and the details are now produced 
in order that private growers of cinchona may be 
enabled to take full advantage of the process, and 
that a permanent reduction in the price of quinine 
may ensue. 
By order of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 
COLMAN MAOAULAY. 
Secretary to the Government of Bengal . 
