The Spanish Fork press. [volume] (Spanish Fork, Utah) 1902-current, 1905-11-23
THE VALUE OF GUN NE.
WIN It 10 Used So Extensively - The
Lives 1t Has Saved.

| Ouintne is one OF tue most NdluHDlt
of all the drugs known to medical
science.
No one would venture to travel in
India without 1t. Before its discov.
cry two million people died annually in
India of malarlal fever The mortal
| ity from this cause is now less than
| half that number. The poor people
| so poor that they looked upon the fever
as their fate and expected no relief
are saved by the agency of quinine.
| Livingstone and other travellers in
Central Africa could never have made
their discoveries without its aid. 1t is
said of the great German explorer,
| Schweinfurth, that when he lost his
entire property by fire, valuable sci
entific instruments among the rest, he
| felt the loss of his quinine TO be the
greatest of all, and often thought with
fear of the journeys that lay before
him. which, however, he persevered
in.
The soldiers in the American Civil
War depended greatly upon quinine.
The pioneers in this country when 1t
was first settled and civilized had as
hard work fighting fever and ague in
the then swampy, malarial districts
as in fighting Indians, and quinine was
even more necessary than firearms.
The great interocean canal now in
process of construction across the 18TH
mus of Panama requires the labor of
thousands of men largely unused
to the climate and so much the more
route was decided upon many surveys
were made, and the men, naval officers
and others, engaged in this work were
exposed to all. conditions of weather.
But through the universal and proper
use of the medicine daily as n precau-
greater than among men in like en-
ploy in other localities. Out of little
more than six thousand white men
employed in the construction of the
Panama Railroad there were only 293
deaths, and some of these We're the re-
suit of other than climatic causes.
The whole world is indebted to the
chinchona tree, from which quinine is
made. Who could have foretold that
this tree, native of the mountainous
forests of South America, would be of
such Importance in the advance of civ
ilization and Christianity?
Its safe transportation from one side
Of the world to the other and the sue
cess attained in converting a wild
into cultivated plant and naturaliz-
ing it reads like a romance. One of
the strange things about quinine is
that it is not used as medicine in
the practice of the native physicians
Of Peru. Ecuador or Colombia.
The native Indians did not even
know of its curative property till en-
lightened by the Spaniards about $50
years ago. They called the chinchona
tree kina. from which comes the word
quinine. What a lot of names the drug
has had! China bark, quina. quin-
quina, chinchona bark, quinine, Gin
coma, countess powder, Jesuit's bark,
Cardinal de Lugo's powder, Peruvian
bark, etc.
Great fortunes have been made out
Of it. AT one time when Louis XIV.
purchased the secret a pound of the
bark cost about $50. AS it came into
general use it became most impor-
tant article of export from Peru. Now
1t is successfully cultivated in Ceylon
and Java.
AS means of guarding the system
from intermittent fever the English
naval regulations require that every
man shall take portion of the drug
when a ship is within certain dis
lance of the east or west coast of
Africa, and that it shall be regularly
taken by those engaged in boat cruis-
ing along the coasts or on the rivers
Or creeks.
We say with as much truth now as
did Lambert in 1920: "The treasures
which Peru yields and which the Span
ards sought and dug out of the bowels |
Of the earth are not to be compared
for utility with the bark of the quin- |
luina tree, which they for long
time ignored. "-Chicago Chronicle.