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first for Payta, then for Panama, and afterwards came here in 
his Majesty's brig Savage. Very shortly afterwards he did 
me the favour to place in my hands a portion of the Cuichun- 
chulli he had brought with him, which he requested I would 
employ in cases of the Mai de San Lazaro, in order to ascer- 
tain its medicinal powers; and he likewise, at my desire, sent 
me an account of his voyage, from which I have extracted the 
foregoing particulars. 
Mr. Marcucci being anxious that my trials of this plant 
should be made with the least delay possible, as his stay in 
Jamaica would be limited, I commenced by administering it 
to five of the most diseased Lazars, (negroes or samboes, one 
man and four women) that I found in the Cocobay Asylum, 
(a small building attached to the Kingston House of Correc- 
tion,) whom I was kindly permitted by the officers of the in- 
stitution to take under temporary charge; and I afterwards 
gave it to two others, a mulatto woman, and a white man. It 
is necessary to premise that the quantity of the dried plant 
w r hich I received, when reduced to powder, did not exceed 
eleven or twelve ounces; that, to make it go farther, I had the 
stems and leaves ground up with the roots, (although I have 
since thought it very possible that the medicinal properties of 
the plant may reside in its roots alone,) and that, in conse- 
quence of Mr. Marcucci's being afterwards under the neces- 
sity of embarking for Maracaybo sooner than I had expected, 
(when he took with him the remainder of his Cuichunchulli,) 
my trials with it were necessarily put a stop to, long before 
they could fairly be deemed to have had sufficient time to pro- 
duce their full results. 
When the first six of the above mentioned patients had 
taken about ten drachms each of the powder, which was the 
whole that I could spare to them, and which was given in 
doses of thirty grains raised gradually to sixty, they gene- 
rally stated that their condition was bettered in various re- 
spects, and particularly that the heat and tension they com- 
monly felt over the body, mostly during the night, was con- 
siderably diminished, and was succeeded by a comparative 
