October r, 1890 ..I 
THE TROPICIM- AJOKItfOLTUmST 
291 
contain tannin but no theine, although he admits 
that none of them are injurious to health. Ha 
supplies some hints about the making of tea which 
have at least novelty to recommend them. The 
very fine teas are ground to powder, and this is 
infused in water not much more than lukewarm, 
the temperature ranging from 120 to 150 Fahrenheit. 
Medium quality tea is infused for one minute only 
in water at the boiling point, while inferior black 
tea requires to be absolutely boiled. What tea 
drinkers want is a combination of quality with 
cheapness, and this should not be unattainable. 
Theine is a rank poison, but it does not follow 
that tea, coffee, cocoa, matd, and many other 
kinds of foliage and fruit are fatal to life or even 
in any marked degree injurious to health; In like 
manner prussic acid kills instantaneously, and 
yet bitter almonds and apple-pips may be eaten 
with impunity. Vegetable poisons may, as a rule, 
be taken in small doses, not only without much 
risk, but medicinally, with advantage. It need not, 
therefore, be looked upon as surprising that the 
Americans have made the discovery that strychnine 
lozenges may be taken without any immediate lethal 
oonscquences. It is contended that a lozenge con- 
taining the 13th of a grain of the alkaloid serves 
as a tonic, bracing the system and banishinglanguor. 
But who says so ? Any eminent phvsician ? No. 
Somebody has said so, and rumor keeps up the 
fallacy. The practice is dangerous, and should be 
disoountenanoed. The habit of taking stryohnine 
lozenges may become confirmed, and may lead to 
a craving for larger doses, as opium eating does. 
Not only is stryohnine poisonous, but so also is 
the plant from which it is extracted. Daturin is 
an allied alkaloid, and medical men not infre- 
quently advise patients suffering from asthma to 
smoke the stalks of the thorn apple or datura 
stramonium, but it may be questioned whether the 
alkaloid is not destroyed during the combustion. 
The stryohnine lozenge is a more serious affair, 
and its oonsumption has its analogue in tobaoeo 
chewing, although no one has yet taken to the 
use of nicotine lozenges. Those who take drugs 
of this kind, in any form, unless in obedienoe 
to the orders of their medical advisers, are not 
deserving of sympathy when their indiscretion leads 
to suffering. 
There is a soaroity of oamphor in Europe, and 
it has gone up enormously in price, which has 
advanced from Is to 3s 6 d per lb. The explana- 
tion given is that oamphor is used in large 
quantities in the manufacture of smokeless gun- 
powder. It is just as likely that a oamphor ring 
has been formed, and that large quantities of the 
drug may be stored somewhere awaiting a further 
rise. In the meantime a Paris physician recom- 
mends it as a spsoifio in cholera — ^a very old idea 
which may have little but its age to recommend it. 
— Melbourne Leader, Aug. 2nd. 
SELLING QUININE FOR FUTURE 
DELIVERY. 
For some weeks past there has been a revival, on 
a r-th'T modest se.ile, of the speculation in quinine, 
which at irregular intervals lends a temporary flicker 
of excitement to the dealings in that unfortunate 
product. In spite of the oftrepeated lessons of former 
years, it seems that there are still persons sanguine 
enough to believe that a good thing is to be made 
by investing money in quinine. There are never 
wanting intermediaries who with an eye to brokerage, 
are ready to prove with the aid of statistics that the 
market muaf soon take a turn for the better, and 
that if facts hitherto have unfortmiately tailed to 
agree with their predictions, so much the worse is 
it for the facts. Any spasmodic revival of speculation 
brings gn.st to the mill of the brokers who are mani- 
pulating the purchases on behalf of investors, and 
the kernel of whose philosophy may he con- 
sidered to lie in the axiom a^jr^s moi le dUuc/e. Outsiders 
have been drawn into the stream by relying on the slender 
knowledge displayed in certain “financial” journal which 
have permitted the columns to ba used for the further- 
ance of some operators’ veiws. The communication 
which we print on another page of this issue from an 
Amsterdam cinchona broker of standing may be studied 
to some advantage by people who are always ready to 
allow themselves to be drawn by the infallible sta- 
tisHo system. Our correspondent propounds the theory 
that the quinine price cannot permanently advance so 
long as one or two “speculative” imnufacturers are 
able to depress it to their own immediate adva’age, 
and with complete impunity so far as they them- 
selves are concerned, by a simple but efficient system of 
contracting with the J ava planters to supply them direct 
with their bark at a price to ba dependent on the basis of 
the quinine unit existing at the time when the bark shall 
bedelivered, Theplanter thereby saves auction expenses, 
brokerage and warehouse charges ; he knows that, 
come what may, he is sure to be able to dispose of 
the whole of his produce at the market price of the 
day; and preferring modest certainty to capricious 
chance, he delivers himself into the hands of the spe- 
oulative manufacturer. Now what is the position of 
the latter? He has to face a keen competition, and 
can only keep his head above water by either forming 
a ” combination” with his rivals, or elbowing them out 
“Combination” has been tried and found wanting, and 
the other alternative is therefore being pursued with 
vigour. The manufacturers’ mode of procedure is 
sketched as follows: Having made his contract with 
the planter, and knowing that he can depend with cer- 
tainty upon a supply of bark equal to, say 300,000 oz. 
of quinine in the course of the season, he proceeds to 
attract buyers by offering quinine at an exceptionally 
low figure, to be delivered, say in four or five months’ 
time. Being the lowest in price, he secures orders, and 
his rivals, who have to buy their material mostly at 
the public sales, are bound either to follow suit, handi- 
capped by the want of a certain cheap supply of cin- 
chona in the future, or to give up the competition and 
trust to the established reputation of their brands for 
the preservation of certain channels of eonsumption. 
When delivery of the quinine is due. the “ speculative” 
manufacturer is in possession of the cinchona from 
his Java planters, and as he pays them upon the basis 
of the quinine unit ruling at the time of delivery 
which, in a period of abundant supply, he is able to in- 
fluence towards depression by underselling his compet- 
tors in advance — he is sure to make a profit, small 
may be, but absolutely certain, the Java man paying 
the piper. The names of the clever operators referred 
to will occur at once to anyone familiar with the 
London drug market. As a matter of fact there are 
and have been for a long period, only two or three 
so-called “ speculative ” quinine makers. The others 
have ceased to “ compete ’’ seriously in the “ future 
delivery ” business, and are waiting for the time when 
the system, which must iiatutally be a hazardous one, 
shall be relinquished. In confirmation of our corres- 
pondent’s theory, for which we disclaim any respon- 
sibility ourselves, but which is certainly an ingenious 
one, we may point to two items which were published 
in our journal about a year ago. At a meeting of 
the Soekaboemi Agricultural Association of Java (to 
which most of the cinchona planters of the island 
belong) hold earlv last year, a letter was read from 
Messrs. Zimmer & Co., of Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
expressing a desire to enter into negotiations with .Java’ 
cinchona growers for the Purchase of their entire 
production of bark outright, lo .save cluirges. At 
the annual meeting of shareholders in the S >ekanegara 
Company held in Amsterdam last June, it wis an- 
nounced that the whole of the cinchona produced on 
that company’s plantations had been consigned to the 
Brunswick Quinine Works at an average price (for ISfiS) 
of about lOjd per oz. for its equivalent of <|uinino sul- 
