Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-02-01
A ouininc Famine Threatened.


stofy Of quinine:
The director general Of the Pan Am
erican Union is sending out sheet
Of facts combined with a little story
that is interesting.
At the breaking out Of the war sui
phate of quinine was selling at about
20 cents an ounce. wholesale. A year
ago it sold for 40 cents; today 1t is
selling for $50 an ounce. When it is
stated that during the fiscal year end
ing June 80, 1914, the last normal yoar
prior to the war. the United States
imported nearly 1000, 900 ounces Of sui
phate of Quinine, then valued at about
$3.50, 600, and over 3.64s.000 pounds Of
chinchona bark, valued at $464, 900, 1t
may be seen what such difference in
price may mean to the country.
! How is the European war RESPONSE
bleo Simply because Great Britain
| controls the chinchona bark industry
/ in her possessions Of India, Ceylon and
Java, and these are the sections of the
world which have been furnishing
practically its supply Of quinine, in the
form of chinchona bark. for the last 80
! or 35 years Great Britain is carefully
outstanding the supply of this precious
, specific for the use of her armies and
those Of her allies, while the Dutch
must be depended upon to supply those
of the Central Powers. Armies in the
/ field need vastly larger supply Of
uuinine than would the same number
Of men in ordinary occupations-hence
quinine famine for the rest OF the
world If the war continues, not only
will the price continue TO rise but the
serious question will be-where are
We to get it at all?
/ Time was when certain countries Of
South America where the chinchona
trees originated, supplied the world,
and the story OF quinine and how it
! was introduced into Europe is enter
tain;nsly told by Edward Albes4in the
current number Of the Bulletin Of the
Pan American Union, Washington, D.
| c., somewhat as follows:
Once upon time--278 years ago, to
! be more exact--in her viceroyal castle
in Lima. Peru. lady lay i'll of a fever.
She was the Countess Ana, wife Of the
fourth Count of Chinchon who at the
time was viceroy Of Peru. News of the
ladys illness having reached one Don
Juan Lopez de CanniZares, the Spanish
CorregidOr of Loxa, who dWelt some
230 miles south of Quito, in what is
now the republic Of Ecuador, he de-
spatched a parcel Of a certain kind OF
powdered bark to her physician, Juan
de Vega, with the assurance that it
was a sovereign remedy and a never
failing specific in cases of intermittent
fever. He knew this to be true from
both experience and observation, for
about eight years prior to this event he
had suffered from a severe attack Of
fever and had been cured by an old
Indian Of Malacotas, who had thus
revealed the remarkable properties Of
this bark. Since then he had observed
its effects in many other cases-so he
knew whereof he spoke. The remedy
was tried, and the countess was cured.
The name given by the aborigines to
the tree on which grew this wonderful
bark was 'quina -quina."
| In 1910 the Count Of ChinchOn re-
turned to Spain with his wife. She
took with her quantity Of the healing
bark. and thus was the first person to
;r+ ~ ;,tc C,,h . w
some Of the Jesuit missionaries in
Brazil sent parcels of the powdered
bark to Rome, whence it was distribut-
ed by the Cardinal de Lugo to other
members Of the fraternity throughout
Europe. 1t was therefore often called
'Jesuits' bark, and sometimes "Cardi-
nails bark" Something over hundred
years after the Countess of Chinchon
had introduced it into Spain, Linnaeus,
the great Swedish botanist, in making
his remarkable classification of all
known trees and plants to commemor-
ate the service rendered to mankind
by that lady, named the genus which
yields the bark Chinchona, and subse-
quently still further immortalized the
name by giving it to the great family
of trees and plants now known as the
Chinchonaceae, which includes not only
the Chinchonae but also the ipecacua-
mas and the coffees.
In their native habitat, in Peru,
Ecuador, Bolivia, and Columbia, the
trees flourish in a cool and equable
temperature on the slopes and in the
valleys and ravines Of the mountains,
surrounded by the most majestic seem
cry, never descending below an eleva-
ton Of $500, and ascending as high as
5000 feet above the sea. When in good
soil and under favorable circumstances,
they become large forest trees; on the
higher elevations and when crowded
and growing in rocky ground. they fire.
quently run up to great heights without
a branch: and at the upper limit Of
their zone they become mere shrubs
The leaves in the finest species are
lanceolate, with a shining surface Of
bright green, traversed by crimson
veins. and petioles Of the same color.
The flowers are small and hang in
clustering panicles, like lilacs, general
ly Of deep roseate color. paler near
the stalk. dark crimson within the
tube, with curly hairs bordering the
laciniae Of the corolla, and give forth q
delicious fragrance.