The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-10-17
HOW QUININE IS USED.
Made the Basis for More Than Three
fourths OF the Prescriptions Put Up By
Druggists.

Made the Basis for More Than Three
fourths OF the Prescription Put Up By
Druggists.
New York Mail and Express.
If all drugs of the pharmacopeia, ex-
cept opium and quinine could be
dumped into the sea, I believe mankind
would be the gamer in more ways than
one."
1t was in this strain that an old-school
physician expressed his disgust for the
healing art in the presence Of a report
er for the Mail and Express.
.Then yon consider opium and qui-
z;ise the staple drugs.
"Assuredly. Quinine especially SO.
More than ~three-fourths Of ali the pre-
scriptions written to-day have for their
basis quinine. It is used as a tonic, as
q sedative, as an irritant, as an antiph-
logistic, in fact, I can not say what it is
not used for. Why, the advertisements
of the druggists show conclusivsly that
it is the most important drug known.
You can read everywhere, Great re-
auctions in quinine.'"
@And have these great reductions
been made in price, the quality or the
weight ~
In the price without doubt. You
can buy the best article now for 81 an
ounce. Ten years ago the same article
sold for So. Half that sum has beer
paid for it within the past FIVE years
@Then the denaand! is falling eff2n
"On the contrary, the demand ia
greater than ever. The real cause 81
the reduction is, / think. the throwing
Of immense lots Of the drug upon the
market. When Congress removed the
ten per cent. duty, the surplus of the
foreign market was rushed over here.
Then, too, the failures of Alexander
BoohTingeT q 5r., th5 iaTBsss manu-
facturers of q~uinine in the world, and
G. @. Myer & Co., the largest dealers
in chinchona bark, have had much to do
with l~essening the prices. In conse-
queDce of those and other failures there
is no less than 100000 pounds of quin-
inc in London which will soon be forced
to a sale by brokers who have advanced
money upon it and took the drug as
collateral.
"Then quinine will be cheaper still?'
II think not. Bottom has beer
reached and before long poor fever'n
ager' patients will have to paw for their
q%uinine. The estimated product Of
quinine Of the world, / believe, is Il
100000 pounds a year. Counting that
it takes thirty-six pounds Of bark to get
one pound of quinine, this would neces,
state the gathering of 36, 900, 600 pounds
of bark. I understand, however, that
there is a Mexican bark which yields
the same amount Of quinine to one
half the amount of bark, and If this Is
so prices. may not GO up SO quickly as
they otherwise would Though called
the Peruvian bark, that from which
quinine is made does not necessarily
some from Peru. Much Of it Gomez
from Ceylon, Liberia and Java, and il
is limited that before long il will be
successfully cultivated IN the United
States"
lis the bark expensive
1T varies in price from % cents to 81
an ounce. But besides quinine, which
is the fifth essence of the bark, cinch0na.
cincheAidea and other products are got
ten from it. Until recently G<@saan5
and Italy were the greatest producers
Of quinine but at present the leading
manufacturesin the world are located
in Philadelphia."