Meanwhile, the Jesuits had been busy propagating the new remedy and proving its virtues. The provincial father brought a large supply to Rome, and explained the method of using it to a congress of Jesuits then assembled in that city. The fathers administered it all over Europe, giving it gratuitously to the poor and to their own order, but charging its weight in gold to the rich. It is said that they endeavoured to keep it as a secret medicine, and would only supply it in powder so that it might be more difficult to identify. The Procurator-General of the order, Father (afterwards Cardinal) de Lugo, making a journey to Paris in 1649, found the king, Louis XIV, himself suffering at the time from an intermittent fever. He recommended to him the use of the bark, and Louis took it and quickly recovered. The powder of the Cardinal, the Powder of the Fathers, the Jesuits’ Powder, by which names among others it was known, consequently came into strong demand. But these titles were largely responsible for the reaction which almost drove cinchona out of practice. Protestant fears and prejudices were added to the orthodox opposition of the Galenists, and besides, many practitioners administered the bark ignorantly, in too small or too large doses, while the high prices at which it was sold led to fraudulent substitution, which more than anything else discredited the bark as a medicine. Sprengel quotes complaints from the Cardinal de Lugo, the apothecary of the College of Medicine at Rome, and Vincent Protospatario, a physician at Naples, who alleged that the Spanish merchants were sending into Italy instead of the true Peruvian bark various other astringent barks devoid of any aromatic taste, but flavoured up to the necessary bitterness by aloes.
Although Sydenham in England, and a number of eminent physicians on the Continent, studied the proper methods of administration and the suitable doses of bark, it fell to a practitioner whose methods went a long way to justify charges of charlatanry firmly to establish cinchona in professional and popular favour.
Robert Talbor was assistant with an apothecary at Cambridge named Dear. It has been ascertained that in 1663 he had been entered as a sizar at St. John’s College for five years, but there is no indication that he took a degree. In his writings he states that he was largely indebted to a member of the University of the name of Nott for suggestions relative to the administration of bark. The next heard of him is that he was practising in Essex. This was about 1671. He wrote a book in 1672, which he called “Pyretologia,” a rational account of the cause and cure of agues. In this he refers to his own secret remedy, which, he says, consists of four ingredients, two indigenous and two exotic. He mentions Peruvian bark and intimates that it is an excellent remedy, but one that should be employed with prudence, as in the hands of inexperienced doctors it might occasion serious evils. He does not say that it was contained in his specific.
Talbor moved to London and set up his sign next door to Gray’s Inn Gate, in Holborn. His treatment brought him into fame, the climax of which was that having cured the daughter of Lady Mordaunt he was sent for when Charles II was ill with an ague and cured him. He was knighted, appointed a royal physician with a salary of £100 a year, and the king caused a letter to be written to the College of Physicians asking them not to interfere with his practice in London.
Talbor next figures in Paris, and there leaped into eminence. For French convenience he assumed the name of Talbot, an English name with which they were historically familiar. He soon became a favourite in high circles. Mme. de Sévigné refers to him several times in her letters of 1679. In one she says, “Nothing is talked of here but the Englishman and his cures.” In November, 1780, the Dauphin was dangerously ill with a fever. Talbor had plenty of friends at court who wanted him to be sent for. Mme. de Sévigné is again the chronicler. She writes:—“The Englishman has promised on his head to cure monseigneur in four days.” If he fails she believes he will be thrown out of the window. She further states that the King (Louis XIV) insisted on seeing Talbor prepare his wine; and when she reports the fulfilment of his promise and the cure of the Dauphin she notes with malicious glee the discomfiture of the king’s head physician, Antoine d’Aquin.
D’Aquin wrote bitterly against Talbor, insisted that his treatment of the Dauphin and of other persons had been founded on a mistaken diagnosis, and that in the Dauphin’s case he had made a bilious fever into a dangerous disorder. Another critic suggested that his remedy given to the Duke of Rochefoucauld in an arthritic asthma had had fatal consequences.
Louis agreed to buy Talbor’s formula, but nothing was published until after the death of the latter. Two thousand guineas and an annual pension of £100 were granted to the English doctor, and he was made a Chevalier. Shortly afterwards he went to Spain and cured the queen of that country of a fever. Then he returned to London and died in 1781, at the early age of forty.
His official formula, published after his death, directed 6 drachms of rose leaves to be infused in 6 ounces of water with 2 ounces of lemon juice for four hours. A strong infusion of cinchona was added to the above, together with some juice of persil or ache. He also made alcoholic tinctures and wines of cinchona. The French doctors were sure that he was in the habit of adding some opium to his speciality. If he did he invented a valuable combination.
Another contemporary writer, John Jones, gives the following as Talbor’s process. He digested finely-powdered bark in juice of persil and decoction of anise separately. The mixture was placed in an earthen vessel, and having been stirred frequently he added red wine and macerated for a week. He also made a tincture of cinchona by adding 8 ounces of alcohol to 2 ounces of powdered bark.
From a handbill in a collection of quack advertisements in the British Museum Library, dated “1675, &c.,” it appears that Dr. Charles Goodal, who gave his address “at the Coach and Horses, near Physician’s Colledge, Warwick Lane,” offers “for the public good a very superior sort of Jesuit’s Bark, ready powdered, and papered into doses” at 4s. per ounce, or in quantity £3 per lb., and as evidence that this is a reasonable price he refers to Mr. Thain, druggist, of Newgate Street, to whom he had paid 9s. per lb. for a considerable quantity. Possibly it was Mr. Thain who was advertising.