On Cornus Florida. 
267 
pie; and about ten years since an essay was published by 
George W. Carpenter, announcing the discovery of a vege- 
table alkali, which he denominated Cornine. The process by 
which he obtained this new alkaline substance has never been 
published; and the quantity obtained is believed to have been 
small. Yet sufficient of the sulphate of cornine was furnished 
to several physicians of this city, to ascertain that it possessed 
unequivocal powers as a febrifuge — in some instances where 
quinine had entirely failed. Dr. Samuel G. Morton, in the 
11th volume of Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical 
Sciences, gives a detailed account of the trials he made with 
it in the cure of intermittent fever. He describes the sulphate 
as of a grayish white colour, intensely bitter — deliquescent 
when exposed to moisture, and partially soluble in water. 
A well written thesis by J. Cock burn, Jr., was published in 
the July number, present volume of this Journal, to which the 
reader is referred for the result of his experiments. He was 
unsuccessful, however, in obtaining any cornine. 
In accompanying the present number of our Journal with 
a plate of this native of our forests, it is a source of regret 
that there is not sufficient time to prosecute the experiments 
further. My intention would have been to subject a portion 
of the bark obtained from the root, which is much the strong- 
est, to the process generally adopted for the preparation of 
sulphate of quinia, viz.: by acidulated decoction, and precipi- 
tation by lime or magnesia, &c; and to have endeavoured by 
this or other experiments to obtain some definitive results. 
The fact that the Cornus Florida abounds throughout our 
country, that the bark of it both in decoction and powder 
has been extensively used in fevers, and in many instances 
much preferred to the cinchona, constitute the strongest rea- 
sons for a further investigation of the subject. 
Since writing the above, I have conversed with Dr. Jack- 
son, a very intelligent physician, of Northumberland, Penn., 
who informed me that he had been in the practice for many 
years, of using the dogwood bark in the treatment of inter- 
mittent fevers; and that as long ago as 1823, previous to any 
