Souvenir Cinchona tercentenary celebration and exhibition at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum ... London ... / Henry S. Wellcome ... director, L.W.G. Malcolm ... conservator.

  • Wellcome Historical Medical Museum.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Souvenir Cinchona tercentenary celebration and exhibition at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum ... London ... / Henry S. Wellcome ... director, L.W.G. Malcolm ... conservator. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    IO CINCHONA TERCENTENARY EXHIBITION The Jesuits soon afterwards despatched supplies of the Cinchona Bark to Spain. Rompel states : For the earliest transportation of the bark we must thank the Jesuit Barnabe de Cobo (1582-1657), who ... in his capacity of Procurator of the Peruvian Province of the Order, brought the Bark from Lima to Spain . . . and Rome in 1632. In 1621, Don Luis Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera y Bobadilla, fourth Count of Chinchon, married Ana de Osorio. Some time after her death he married his second wife Francisca Llenriquez de Ribera, in 1628. In the same year Count Chinchon was appointed Viceroy of Peru ; and soon after he, and the Vice-reine, proceeded to Peru to take up their duties. It is quite certain that his first wife, Ana de Osorio, never visited Peru, and any reference to the Countess of Chinchon in connection with the history of Cinchona must definitely be ascribed to the Vice-reine, Francisca Henriquez de Ribera, the second wife of the fourth Count of Chinchon. The original records prove that both the Count and Countess of Chinchon suffered severely from fever ; and they also indicate that, in 1638, the Court Physician, Dr. Juan de Vega, cured the Countess of this malady by the administration of Cinchona Bark at Lima. The Vice-reine, Countess Francisca Henriquez de Ribera, died, and was buried in 1641 at Carthagena in Colombia, then a Province of Peru. The distinguishing botanical name of the Genus Cinchona was invented by Linnaeus. This title was suggested by the titular name Chinchon of the Countess Francisca Henriquez de Ribera, the Vice-reine, and second wife of the Viceroy of Peru. In 1740, Linnaeus made his first reference to Cinchona as Quinquina Cond., and in 1742 he invented the word Cinchona for the Genus ( Quinquina Condamin. Act. Gall., 1738). See Frontispiece. The name Quinaquina, Quinquina, Kinkina, or Kinakina, in use until Linnaeus invented the name Cinchona, has been derived from the Quichuan native Indian language of Peru. Markham says : In Quichua, when the name of a plant is re-duplicated it almost invariably implies that it possesses some medicinal qualities. It will be noted that both the native Indian and generic words have formed the root-stems for the designations, not only of the bark, but for its derivative constituents. The purpose of my visit to the indigenous South American Cinchona forests in 1879 was to investigate and study the methods employed in stripping, preparing, drying and packing the Cinchona Bark for transport, also to study the conditions under which these operations were being carried out.