The composition of cinchona febrifuge / by J.A. Goodson and T.A. Henry.

  • Goodson, John Augustus.
Date:
[1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The composition of cinchona febrifuge / by J.A. Goodson and T.A. Henry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE COMPOSITION OF CINCHONA FEBRIFUGE. By J. A. Goodson and T. A. Henry. (From the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories.) Received 14th July, 1930. In January, 1929, the authors received from Dr. H. H. Dale, F. R.S., Director of the National Institute for Medical Research, two samples, A and B, of cinchona febrifuge submitted for examination by the Health Section of the League of Nations. As one of these samples proved on examination to be abnormal in composition, even for such a variable product as cinchona febrifuge, the authors included at a later date a third sample, C, purchased in London. Although cinchona febrifuge is a well-known material there are comparatively few analyses of it recorded and all that the authors have been able to find are given in Table I. Analyses 1 and 9 in this Table are not strictly analyses of cinchona febrifuge. The former relates to a product made by double precipitation of the total alkaloids of Cinchona succirubra bark and should be called “quinetum.” It is of interest to compare this product with that represented by analysis 9 which represents a modern European quinetum, used recently by the Malaria Commis¬ sion of the League of Nations in clinical trials on malaria. Leaving these two out of account it will be seen that cinchona febrifuge appears to be a very variable product. In this connection analyses 2, 3, 4 and 6 are of particular interest. No. 2 was quoted by MacGilchrist2 as being the average composition of cinchona febrifuge produced at the Indian Government factory at Mungpoo. No. 3 was given by Gage3 as representing Indian Government cinchona febrifuge in 1922, and he described it as consisting “ of the residual alkaloids remaining after the extraction of quinine from the barks of C. Ledgeriana and its hybrid with C. succirubra, a certain amount of quinine being added to the mixture to make it approxi¬ mately similar to the original cinchona febrifuge made from G. succirubra,” i.e., presumably such a product as is represented by analysis No. 1. Analyses 4 and 5 were made by Howard4 and represent respectively Indian Government febrifuge tablets examined