The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-06-07
THE HISTORY OF oulNINE.
How 1t Was First Discovered-Named
After spanish Princess.

CHSLAiSe DIS well DIS pOIlCICldH anu d 3
banker to boot, has recently commu
nicated to the world all that he knows,
and practically all that is known con-
corning that life-saving alkaloid, quiz
nine. AS was BETTING such an inter-
esting subject and such an interesting
lecturer, the duke was accorded the
Royal Institution, Londons scientific
holy of HOLES, in which to expound his
theories and disseminate the fruits of
his research The Marquis of Lorne
runs Fife very close in the digging up
of popular subjects and it is race be-
tween them as to who is the better
hand in working up paper which is
both interesting and couched in Ian
guage understood by the masses. Fife,
however, has held his own so far and
the British public has quite come to
regard him as a good all-round man,
who, although a royal princess hus-
band, walks about with his eyes open
and allows few matters of interest to
escape him
On the subject of quinine the duke
says that if it is not exactly 'house-
hold medicine" during the past few
years it has certainly become house
hold word. And perhaps no other drug
has history more varied and interest
ing. Peruvian bark first appeared in
the London pharmacop@ia in 1917. 1t
was, however, used in England at
least as early as the year 1866, and was
advertised for sale in 1868 as THE eX-
cellent powder called by the name of
Jesuits' powder, brought over by one
James Thomson, merchant of Ant
werp."
But what is now universally known
as quinine-one of the most important
of the all1aloids-was not discovered
till 1911; nor was it obtained in pure
state by complete separation from the
other constituents of the bark until
ten years afterward. Quite unscien-
tifically, quinine may be described as
the base, or essential principle, of the
bark of certain individuals among the
cinchona family of trees. This bark
was first introduced into Europe in
1882, though it is generally said to have
been unknown there before the return
to Madrid of the Countess of Cinchon,
the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, in
1910. This lady, from whom the bark
producing trees derive their botanical
name, had been cured by it of a fever
contracted in Lima in 1858, and her
physician, by whom she was accom-
panied to Europe, not unnaturally
made much of the woodworking
medicine.
But the Jesuits who had settled in
Peru were quite aware of it's virtues at
an earlier date. They were, at all
events, the chief agents of its distribu-
ton in Europe, the powder obtained
from the bark being then generally
known as ''Jesuits' powder" In Mad
rid it was called Countess powder, and
in Rome Pulvis Patrum. From the lat
ter city it speedily found its way to
Brussels and Antwerp, where it was
sold for it's weight in silver, or about
ten times the then price of opium. In
1858 twenty doses of the powder were
sent from Rome to Paris at cost of
$3.50, and Cardinal Mazarin recon-
mended its use in a dangerous illness
of Louis XIV. That Peruvian bark was
duAlnlSb CICu W GllC l. IClCl hluS 10 I'LL
doubted, but an interesting piece of
historical evidence points to different
source as the means of its Introduction
to that court. In 1879 a well-known
London physician named Tabor cured
Charles II. of tertian fever, with the
now famous bark, which he regarded
in the hands of skilled persons ''as a
noble and safe medicine" Compared
with the nature of the ''elixir" which
had been in all good faith compounded
for James l. for similar distemper,
the new drug was indeed worthy of
admiration. The fame of Charles ply
sician extended to France and Louis
NIV.'s surgeon published an account
of Tabor treatment, which was trans
lated into English, entitled "Talbor's
Wonderful Secret for Curing OF Agues
and Fevers."
The prevalence and severity of these
diseases, down to the end of the seven
teenth century, caused them to be re-
garded as national scourges for which
the fever bark" was accepted as al
most miraculous panacea. Nor does
this estimate of its powers appear ex-
travagant when the ludicrous and
often barbarous nature of the remedies
which it gradually superseded are taken
into considerati ton. "Plaisters and
possets" were amoug the prevailing
nostrums; but their ingredients were
rather suggestive of the contents of a
witch's cauldron than of the benefcent
applications of later days. Fever was
to be cured by music and ague by cleo
tricity, while the placing of the fourth
book of the Had under the long-sutfer-
ing patients heaH was supposed to be
of magical value in both disorders.
Above all, fear was thought to be es-
pecially necessary in the treatment of
ague, and the description of many of
the methods then used seems to have
been we'll calculated to inspire it.
Humboldt doubted whether the cura-
tive nature of the bark was originally
known to the Peruvians but the prob
ability seems to be that its qualities
were fully understood by the natives
long before the Spaniards landed on
their shores. There is a tradition that
the properties of the bark were first
practically realized by fever-stricken
Indian, who, being left behind in the