Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-29
GOOD FORM FOR MEN;
CHIEF AMONG ALL DRUGS.
Quinine Has Cut Down Death Rate in
India,
From the Chicago Chronicle

rom the lineage throhcie
Qunine IS one of the most valuable of
all the drugs known to medical science.
No one would venture to travel in India
without it. Before its discovery 100000
people died annually in India of malarial
fever The mortality from this cause is
now less than half that number.
The poor people-so poor that they locked
upon the fever as their fate and expected
no relef-are saved by the agency of quI-
nine. England could not keep her Euro
pean soldiers in India without it.
Livingstone and other travellers in cen
trail Africa could never have made their
discoveries without its aid. Ii is said of
the great German explorer, Schweinfurth,
that when he lost his entire property by fire.
valuable scientific instruments among the
rest he felt the loss of his quinine to be
the grea test of ALL and often thought with
fear of the journey that lays before him,
which, however, he perservered in.
The soldiers in the American civil war
depended greatly upon quinine. The pio-
neers in this country when it first set
tied and civilized had as hard work fighting
fever and ague in the then swampy ma
larial districts In fighting Indians and
qulnlne was even more necessary than fire
arms.
The great interoceanic canal now in prog
Tess of construction across the Isthmus of
Panama requires the labor of thousa nds Of
men largely unaccustomed to the climate
and so much the more susceptible to its i'll
effect. Before the route vas decided upon
many surveys Were made. and the men,
naval officers and others, engaged in this
work We're exposed TO al conditions of
weather. But through the universal and
proper use of the medicine daily as a pre-
cautionary measure the mortality was no
greater than among men in like employ in
other localities. Out of a little more than
G,0O0 white men employed in the construc-
tion of the Panama railroad there were
only % deaths and some of these were
the result of other than climatic causes
The whole world is indebted to the chin
chona 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 ci yilization and Christianity?
It's safe transportation from one side Of
tfe world to the other and the success at
t1ined in converting a wild into a cultivated
plant and naturaiZng it reads like ro-
nance. One of the strange things about
quinine is that ii is not used as a medicine
in the practice of the native physicians of
Peru. Ecuador or Colombia.
The native Indians did not even know OF
it's curative property till enlightened by the
Spaniards about go years ago. They ca led
the chinchona tree kina, from which comes
the word Quinine What do you call it
kwine. kin-nine, keen-neen or kin-neen?
What a lot of names the drug has had
China bark, quina, quinquina, chinchona
bark, quinine cincona, countess powder
Jesuit's bark. Cardinal de Lugo's powder
Peruvian bark, etc.
Great fortunes have been made out of #.
At one time when Louis XIV purchased the
secret a pound of the bark cost about $50
AS 1t came into general use it became a
most important 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 regula-
tons require that every man should take
a portion of the drug when the ship is
within n certain distance of the east or
west coast of Africa, and that it should be
regularly taken by those engaged in boat
cruising along the coasts or on the rivers
or creeks.
We say with much truth now as did
Lambert In 1870: The treasures which
Peru yields and which the Spaniards sought
and dug out of the bowels of the earth
are not to be compared for utility with the
bark of the qutnquina tree. which they for
a long time ignored"