The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-12-26
QUININE AND IT'S ROMANCE.
The Jesuit Attempt to Corner the
Market by Means of a PapaI Bull.


Market by Means of PapaI Bull.
From Leisure Hour.
OF the Peruvian bark only a fiftieth
comes from Peru, our chief source being
Madras, Cey,on holding second place, the
two together sending us more than all the
rest of the world put together. Forty
years ago our quinine bark all came from
the slopes of the Andes, most of it, as a
little does now. packed in hides carried
by hand and on mules and on boats and
RATS for thousands of miles down the Am
azon. Known for ages TO the natives only
in one locality. and so dstrusted by them
that il was never carried in the wallets
of their itinerant doctors-so that II IS
said with some show of truth that Peru
is the only country. where Peruvian bark
is not used-it first came into notice 1888
when the Countess Chinchon, wife OF the
Viceroy of Peru lay i'll at Lima OF ter
tian fever The corregidOr of LoXa, hear
ing of her illness, and knowing the re
puted virtues of the quina bark, sent her
a parcel of one of its varieties, which, al
ministered by her physician, brought
about a rapid and complete cure.
The variety of bark however, was one
that abounds in cnchontdine, and 1t was
probably this alkaloid and not quinlne
that cured the Countess. Two years aft
erward the woman returned to SPAN
bringing with her a supply of the prec-
ions ouina for the use of the sick on her
husbands estates. and its reputation
gradually spread under the name of coun-
tess, noyvder. In 1870 the Jesuts sent
some parcels of the powdered bark
to Rome to be distributed by Cardinal de
Lingo whence it became known as cardi-
h1T mid
ridiculous result that no Protestants
would have anything to do with it,
One of the oft-quoted absurdities of this
carly trade was that to insure monop-
olv-always a monopoly-the Jesuits per-
suaded the Pope to draw line across
South America beyond which no tree
should be recognized as yielding qulnihe:
IT might be an unmistakable cinchona all
The same but a cinchona it could not pos
LII he as it had had the audacity to
grow beyond the Pope's line; and any one
Who refused to accept the evidence of his
senses was promptly treated as a heretlc'
The Jesuits were jubilant, and sold the
bark at high prices in Catholic countries
Wanting il as an infallible remedy, under
the name of Pulvis patrum. 1t was Jonn
Tabor, an English apothecary VINO broke
down the prejudice against It. by the
number of cures he effected by its means,
without revealing its name, he became
Yroroinent enough to be knighted by
Charles II in 1887; and next year. as ply
sleian-in-ordinary, he cured the King of
a tertian fever. Passing over to France
the same year he cured the Dauphn and
a few other personages in high places, and
sold the secret of its preparation to Louis
XIV for 1900 louis dor pension and a
title
The preparation does not seem TO have
extended very far, for it was not until
1915 that the bark was Systematically an
alyzed. and after that five years elapsed
before the alkaloid quinine was found in
It. Notwithstanding Talbor's success, the
doctors fought bitterly over the new drug,
those of Paris more trucuently than all.
the older men refusing to admit that it
possessed any good qualities whatever,
and one of them going so far as to assert
that quinquina, as Il had come to be call
ed was responsible for ninety sudden
deaths In Madrid alone. But IL made It's
way, az the same, helped along by Syden-
ham and Morton, though the prejudice
against IL had not quite died out in the
early part Of the present century when
in the Walcheren expedition many a poor
fellows life was saved by the timely ar
rival of a Yankee trader with some chests
OF bark. after the supply had entirely
failed n the camp.