12 OBSEEVATIONS ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE GENUS CINCHONA. 
recognized, since a Willow is still the same plant under whatever form, and it 
was supposed that this was the case with the Cinchonse when the genus was first 
established. The Quina primitiva was supposed to have a kind of recognised 
typical character, and a superiority which was claimed as distinguishing the 
bark of Peru, or of New Granada, as viewed by the advocates of the products 
of these different regions. It was thought sufficient to distinguish the few 
varying kinds of cinchonaceous plants that were at first recognised by the pre¬ 
valent form of the leaf as cordifolia, lancifolia, ohlongifolia^ ovalifolia, etc., 
thus confounding together even different genera through a premature classi¬ 
fication. 
This systematizing tendency has since, in the opinion of the writer, led to 
the grouping together of Cinchonse essentially different, since the reality much 
more resembles what might be the case, if there existed amongst the varieties of 
Salix some which closely approximated, in the timber and the bark, to the Oak 
and others which in these resjDects counterfeited the Hazel, or as if a variety 
were to surprise us by producing Quinine instead of Salicine. 
Thus the ovate or cordate or lanceolate form of leaf -may appear to link 
together species of cinchona, which, on more profound study, may be seen to be 
entirelv diverse in their character. 
The writer may be permitted to illustrate his meaning as to premature at¬ 
tempts at systematic nomenclature by reference to another department of science, 
taking as an instance the names of the alkaloids produced by these same plants, 
which, according to the first impressions, ranged thus:— 
Quinine. Cinchonine. 
Quinidine. Cinchonidine. 
Quinicinc. Cinchonicine. 
Further and more careful examination shows a different arrangement, as indi¬ 
cated by their properties in reference to the ray of plane polarized light. 
Quinine. Cinchonine. Cinchonicine. 
Cinchonidine. JQuinidine. Quinicine. 
Powerfully laevogyrate. Pre-eminently dextrogyrate. Feebly dextrogyrate. 
This latter being the true relation, as shown by Dr. Herapath in his com¬ 
munications to the Royal Society, on chemical grounds, and by Mr. Howard in 
Reports to the Under-Secretary of State for India, on specimens of bark grown 
in that country, from which it appears that it is the order in which in the plants 
themselves these alkaloids are produced, normally in concert, and under cir¬ 
cumstances of changed locality are supplemented, or even superseded by each 
other. Thus the quinine-producing Calisaya forms always some, and abnor¬ 
mally much cinchonidine, and the cinchonine-producing C. micrantha of Peru 
forms in India a large product of quinidine. 
Mr. Howard thinks the species of Calisaya can be best studied in connection 
with the different geographical centres, the products of -which he proposes briefly 
to review, so far at least as concerns their most prominent species, beginning 
with Bolivia. 
ThelBarks of Bolivia. 
Cinchona Calisaya.^ Weddell.—This species certainly merits the first mention. 
It is beyond all question the first in importance in commerce, as furnishing the 
bark most largely used in the production of the precious medicine quinine. It 
contains this product in remarkable purity, with very little admixture of any 
other alkaloid—a fractional quantity of cinchonidine and cinchonine being (in 
the best specimens) the only exception. 
It is not to be supposed that the products of wild forests should be kept care- 
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