THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 19, 1871. 
148 
foreigners, of whom they are deeply jealous. How- 
ever, when he wrote he was on the point of starting 
for the interior, and was confident of procuring a 
supply, in season for it to reach early in August. On 
arriving in the Loja district he will hire a force of 
Indians to gather the plant, and bring it down from 
the mountains, where it grows at points so high as 
to he inaccessible to beasts of burden. It will then 
be packed on mules, and transported to the coast. 
Dr. Keene found that orders for condurango had been 
received at Guayaquil from persons in England, 
Erance, Italy and other countries, to the Govern¬ 
ments of which the Government of Ecuador had 
furnished samples. 
On the other hand, there are evidently those who 
have doubts concerning the reputed virtues of con- 
durango. The American correspondent of the Times, 
writing from Philadelphia, says :— 
“ Reference has been made to the condurango plant of 
Ecuador, an alleged remedy for cancer, to which the 
attention of the United States’ Government was called 
in an official communication from the American Minister 
in that country. Tho samples of the plant sent here 
were distributed by the State Department as an efficient 
remedy, and a physician was quoted as having experi¬ 
mented with it, and vouched for its healing powers. 
Put it appears that a board of physicians have been con¬ 
ducting experiments in Washington at the hospitals, 
and, although they have made no final report, yet their 
judgment, so far as tho experiments have gone, is against 
the plant, w r hich is said to bo entirely inefficacious. A 
decoction of the wood of the condurango is used, but 
careful analysis fails to show that it has any unusual 
properties. The bark contains an insoluble gum, but 
no recognized medicinal principle. Both the w r ood and 
the bark have been subjected to minute examination, 
and are pronounced worthless. The patients afflicted 
with cancer wdio have been placed under treatment with 
condurango are said to fail to show any improvement in 
condition. There are hints that the stir which has been 
created about this alleged remedy was a part of a well- 
laid plan to get extensive advertising for a new quack 
medicine, for which a patent has already been obtained, 
and of which condurango is an ingredient.’.’ 
Whatever truth there might be in the suggestion 
O CO 
of this writer, it is evident that he has very hazy 
ideas as to what is meant bv the commonly-used but 
•/ «/ 
erroneous term, “ patent medicine.” 
WRITERS ON SCIENCE. 
At the recent Literary Fund dinner, Sir Henry 
Anderson proposed the toast of the “ Writers on 
Science,” coupling with it the name of Dr. B. W. | 
Hichardson, who, in returning thanks, spoke of the 
advantages enjoyed by poet, theologian, historian 
and novelist, compared with those of the writer 
on science. After speaking of the embarrassment 
he experienced in having to respond to a toast 
so novel to him, that he doubted any one had ever 
heard it proposed at a public assembl} r , he said that 
while the speech of Sir Henry Anderson had caused 
to pass before his mind a broken dream of the men 
classed as writers on science, the duty of replying; 
had raised the question— 
“ Who are the writers on science ? Are they as well 
known as other great writers ? They are not. They 
are less fortunate, and, therefore, the more worthy of. 
the exceptional honour you would bestow on.them. Ex¬ 
cuse me a moment or two while I indicate tho peculiari¬ 
ties of the position of the writer on science. He is a 
man communicating to tho world that which is, by com¬ 
parison, new to the world. The poet can cast back for 
his models to a time when the Greeks-had not so much. 
: as the figment of an alphabet. The theologian may go 
i back for his lesson to the earliest manifestations of the 
life of intellect on the planet. The historian finds sub¬ 
ject and matter ready for his hand from the oldest and. 
remotest, as well as the newest, writings and traditions 
of races and peoples. Tho story-teller is embarrassed. 
witli the richness of the past, and troubled by the greed 
! of his admirers for more of his work. These all, indeed, 
| are but the continuing interpreters of things, events, 
thoughts, which every man who claims to read claims- 
also to understand. The writer of science has none of 
these advantages; he is but newly born into an old 
world of thought, and is not simply telling of new won¬ 
ders, but is often himself learning at the same time as- 
he is instructing an audience unlearned in his know¬ 
ledge. Thus he comes slowly into the recognized 
brotherhood of men of letters; at the best he speaks to 
but a small audience, amuses rarely, excites, sometimes- 
without intention, hopes that are delusive, and requires- 
always, in order that he may be fairly understood, a de¬ 
gree of patience it is vain to expect from the multitude. 
To these difficulties others are added belonging to tho 
w r ork he accomplishes. The most original writers on 
science are destroyed constantly by the magnitude and. 
overpowering character of the work they have written, 
and by the practical results that spring from the work. 
In other literature the book produced lives as the 
book, and the learner from it, age after age, must go 
back to the fountain-head to drink and drink; in science- 
literature the book sinks into the fact it proclaims, and 
the fact remains the exclusive master of the field. A 
striking example of this flashes across my mind at the 
present moment. Every reading man and woman knows 
tkat in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the book of Shake¬ 
speare’s plays had its origin, and nearly every one who 
has read that book (and who has not P) remembers the 
curious saying in it, ‘ I’ll put a girdle round the world 
in forty minutes.’ But how many are there who have- 
read another great book of that same reign, entitled ‘ De 
Magnete,’ or are aware that at the time when Shake¬ 
speare was writing his now familiar phrases, tho author 
of the book on the magnet, the Queen’s Physician, one 
William Gilbert, when his daily toils of waiting upon, 
the sick were over, was working with his smith in the 
laboratory at his furnace, needle and compass, was 
writing up for the first time the word ‘ Electricity,’ and 
was actually forging the beginnings of the very instru¬ 
ments that now, in less than forty seconds, put the girdle 
round the globe P Again, writers on science are lost 
sometimes in the blaze of their own success. They raise 
wonder by what they do, and fall beneath it. All know¬ 
ledge newly born is miracle, but by-and-by, as the 
knowledge becomes familiar, the miracle ceases. In this- 
way advances in science become part of our lives, while 
the men who write them down cease to us. When tho 
Leyden jar was first described, Europe was mentally as. 
well as physically convulsed with the thing; now a 
Leyden jar is a common object—we all know it; but 
how few know of Mr. C'uneus, who first described this 
instrument of science! The whole civilized world is 
cognizant in this day that communication from one part 
of the world to the other, by telegraph, is almost child’s 
play; but how many have seen or heard of Mr. Cavallo’s 
original essay on ‘ Electricity ’ as a means of communi- 
