232 
The  Trade  in  Cinchona  Bark. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  1919. 
The  commercial  or  market  aspect  is  then  briefly  dealt  with  and 
the  efforts — successful  in  the  main — described  which  were  adopted 
to  prevent  over-production  in  the  years  before  the  war.  Under  a 
heading  entitled  "  Trade  in  Cinchona  Bark  and  Quinine,"  the  author 
shows  that  although  the  Indian  plantations  and  factories  are  unable 
to  supply  the  needs  of  that  portion  of  the  Empire,  yet  the  bulk  of 
the  imports  of  manufactured  quinine  into  India  have  hitherto  been 
from  British  sources. 
A  series  of  import  and  export  tables  follows  showing  the  high 
percentage  of  the  quinine  requirements  of  the  United  Kingdom 
which  was  formerly  supplied  by  Germany — a  typical  example  of  the 
position  of  the  fine  chemical  industry  in  this  country  before  the  war, 
and  a  state  of  affairs  which,  we  trust,  has  now  gone  for  ever. 
The  great  importance  of  ^cal  manufacture  of  quinine  salts  in 
Java  and  its  possible  future  bearing  on  the  world's  quinine  trade  is 
not  mentioned,  probably  owing  to  the  complexity  of  the  problem  and 
the  difficulty  of  obtaining  accurate  information.  It  is  obvious,  how- 
ever, that  no  account  of  the  cinchona  industry  which  ignores  this 
important  factor  can  be  considered  complete. 
The  final  portion  of  the  article  deals  with  bark  produced  in  St. 
Helena  and  East  Africa.  Although  from  a  commercial  point  of 
view  these  plantations  are  at  the  moment  negligible,  yet  from  the 
scientific  aspect  the  typical  analyses  given  are  of  considerable  in- 
terest as  they  show  a  high  percentage  of  quinine  and  prove  the  bark 
to  be  well  up  to  the  Java  standard,  thus  indicating  most  successful 
cultivation — which  may  have  been  either  deliberate  or  accidental. 
Viewed  in  detail  the  tables  giving  the  results  of  examination  of 
these  barks  appear  to  be  somewhat  inadequate  and  to  lack  uni- 
formity. Although  the  total  alkaloid  figure  and  the  percentage  of 
quinine  sulphate  are  given,  a  complete  separation  of  the  four  prin- 
cipal alkaloids  has  apparently  not  been  attempted.  Again,  the  re- 
sults are  complicated  by  the  inclusion  of  the  percentage  of  moisture 
found,  but  as  bark  is  valued  on  its  alkaloid  contents  as  shipped, 
moisture  is  not  a  factor  of  any  importance.  A  more  practical 
method  of  stating  the  results  would  be  to  give  the  percentage  of 
(hydrated)  sulphate  of  each  of  the  alkaloids  (quinine,  cinchonidine, 
quinidine  and  cinchonine),  together  with  the  percentage  equivalent 
of  alkaloid  in  each  case ;  also  the  sum  of  these  figures  and  the 
amount  of  amorphous  alkaloid.  So  tabulated,  the  results  of  the 
analyses  of  these  very  interesting  samples  wrould  have  enabled  the 
