useful of medicines was kept at a price which placed it beyond the reach of multitudes to whom it would have proved a blessing.
The discovery of quinine or quinia, one of the alkaloids to which Peruvian Bark owes almost all its medicinal value, and by far the most important of them, took place in the beginning of the present century. The name of quinine is now familiar to every one, and its value not only in the cure of intermittents, but as a tonic medicine, is universally recognised. Great quantities of Peruvian Bark are now consumed in the preparation of quinine, and the question of an abundant supply becomes every day more urgent; for hitherto the demand has increased far more than the supply. What the value of Peruvian Bark is, was proved in the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, in the saving of many lives by the opportune arrival of an American ship with a large quantity of it. Poor sufferers, emaciated with fever and shaking with ague, were speedily restored to health. The introduction of quinine into the military hospitals of India was immediately followed by a great diminution of the mortality from fevers. The quinine used in the hospitals now costs the Government of India many thousands of pounds sterling annually. In the Confederate States of North America, after the beginning of the present war, quinine was eagerly purchased for its weight in gold: and the smuggling of this medicine across the frontier, or by ships which run the blockade, has been as much watched against by the Federalists as the importation of any of the munitions of war. For the exclusive possession of quinine, if it were possible for them, would give great advantage to one of the contending parties, in a country where intermittent fever is often more formidable to an army than the weapons of the enemy.
The abundant supply of Peruvian Bark is, therefore, a question of deep interest to mankind. Every species of cinchona of which the bark is really valuable, is now eagerly sought after, wherever it grows; but the districts once most productive of bark now produce comparatively little; all the regulations by which the South American Governments have from time to time attempted to prevent the destruction of the trees, have been nearly ineffectual; and in all South America no attempt has ever been made for their cultivation. The collecting of the bark is the occupation of persons called cascarilleros. The word is a diminutive of the Spanish cascara, bark; and Peruvian Bark itself is in Peru commonly called cascarilla. These cascarilleros are trained to this occupation from their childhood. Their life is a hard one; they suffer great privations and expose themselves to great dangers, proceeding in quest of bark trees over high mountain passes, to regions far from the habitations of men. The life of the cascarillero, if less exciting, is not less perilous than that of the chamois-hunter of the Alps; and the scenes amidst which it is spent, are more varied, and at least as grand and awful. Before reaching the region where they propose to search for bark trees, the cascarilleros often pass over the highest ridges of the Andes. Their ordinary practice, when they have reached a suitable locality, is to ascend to an elevated pinnacle of the mountains, or to climb one of the highest trees of the forest, in order to obtain an extensive view. They readily recognise the cinchonas by their foliage, even from a great distance, and with wonderful accuracy proceed to the spot where they grow.
But of course no cascarillero feels an interest in preserving the trees for future years. His present interest is to procure as much bark as he can from that wild forest or high mountain ridge, for the merchant who employs him, and to whose warehouse, in some seaport of the western coast, he must carry it over passes where, although within the tropics, he confronts the dangers of snowstorm and avalanche, and where the thin air is scarcely sufficient for his unaccustomed lungs, travelling on the verge of precipices where a false step would make him food for the condor. Sometimes, too, the cascarillero wanders in the forest, and some subsequent traveller may find his bones and his bundles of bark, where, hungry and exhausted, he renounced all hope, and laid himself down to die. No wonder, therefore, that the government regulations for the preservation of the trees receive little attention, and that, although these trees grow readily again from their stools, the men who find them in the lonely wilderness take all that they can, destroying the stools, and barking the very roots for present gain.
That no plantation of cinchonas has yet been attempted in South America is a sad sign of the state of the countries which yet regard these trees as an important part of their national wealth, and exhibit a ridiculous eagerness to prevent any exportation of plants or seeds of them. It is not wonderful that the introduction of them into countries suitable for their cultivation should have been attempted: it is rather wonderful that the attempt should not have been earnestly made long ago. The botanist De la Condamine, indeed, endeavoured to carry plants of a species of cinchona, the first of which the medicinal value was known, from Loxa to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris in 1743, or 1744; but after he had conveyed them, with much trouble, down the Amazon, a wave washed over his little vessel near Para, and carried off the box in which he had preserved them for more than eight months, and in which he had brought them more than two thousand miles. It does not appear that any earnest effort was ever made to procure plants or seeds of these valuable trees with a view to their cultivation in any part of the world, till the Dutch government sent a botanist named Hasskarl to Peru in 1852, to procure them for Java. It had for at least thirty years been urged on the Dutch government by men of science that an endeavour of this kind should be made, the mountains of Java being regarded as very suitable for the cinchonas. Similar recommendations were addressed to the government of British India, particularly by the late eminent Dr. Royle; and these were at last acted upon after Dr. Royle’s death, a commission being given to Mr. Markham in 1859, to procure plants and seeds of cinchonas, and to convey them to India. How well this commission was executed, and amidst what difficulties, may
