On the cheaper alkaloids of the cinchonas.

  • Smith, Daniel B., 1792-1883.
Date:
[1855]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the cheaper alkaloids of the cinchonas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ON THE CHEAPER ALKALOIDS OF THE CINCHONAS. The Cinchona Barks are, without doubt, the most precious contribution of the New World to the Materia Medica of the Old. Their entire control over all the forms of Intermittent Fever was early ascer- tained, and remains undisputed and unrivaled. Three varieties of the Bark have usually been distinguished in commerce, viz: the Pale or Gray Bark, or the Crown Bark of Loxa; the Yellow or Calisaya Bark; and the Red Bark. For more than a century after the Peruvian Bark came into use it was procured almost exclusively from Loxa and the neighboring provinces. It was this variety—the Pale or Gray Bark—in all probability, the success of which established the repu- tation of Peruvian Bark as an anti-periodic. The Yellow or Calisaya Bark appears to have come later into notice, and to have been generally prefer- red on account of its greater bitterness and stronger taste. The Red Bark is stronger and more astringent than either of the others. Humboldt says that in inter- mittent fevers the C. Condaminea, (the Crown Bark of Loxa,) and C. Lancifolia (the Calisaya Bark,) are preferable to the others; while in diseases of the muscles and purulent ulcers C. Oblongifolia (the Red