OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUICHUNCHULLI. 
145 
ders, and ere long the nightly heats recurred; but they again 
subsided after taking a few more powders. 
The case of my white patient is next to be mentioned. As 
I had entire confidence in his punctuality as to taking the me- 
dicine, in his intelligence, veracity, and, I may add, moral 
worth, I felt great interest in his behalf, and therefore T gave 
him the remainder of the powder I had, about five ounces. 
He persevered in its use until he had taken the whole for 
about two months, during which he strictly conformed to 
whatever directions I judged requisite. But it is with pain I 
state that at the expiration of that term neither the patient nor 
myself could perceive that the Cuichunchulli had been of the 
least service to him. Sometimes indeed he told me that he 
thought himself rather better, but that farther reflection pre- 
sently did away with the illusion. In this case therefore the 
plant in question has completely failed ; but this failure may 
only serve to confirm the general rule, that no medicine is 
equally effective in all cases. 
Having now submitted all the authenticated testimonies con- 
cerning the medicinal action of the Cuichunchulli that have 
come into my possession, together with my own experience 
of it, some notice of the plant itself seems requisite. Velasco, 
it will be recollected, spoke of it as " a small whitish slender 
nerve that issued from beneath stones to which it adhered 
firmly;" but from so obscure a description it would obviously 
be next to impossible to find out the plant. Besides this ob- 
stacle to its discovery, another serious one has arisen from the 
circumstance he stated, that the trial made with it by an In- 
dian on the lay-jesuit took place in Cuenca. This naturally 
induces the belief that the plant he then used was a native of 
that city; and as there is an herb growing in that neighbour- 
hood, which is known to the Indians by the name of Cuichun- 
chulli, it is no wonder that various persons under that impres- 
sion should, as we have already seen, have made trial of the 
Cuenca plant, although we are informed that, from its being 
wholly inert, they have all been miserably disappointed in its 
effects. For this reason, however, and also because the roots 
VOL. II. — NO. II. 19 
