QUILLS. Prep. 1. The quills or wing-feathers of the goose (goose quills) are separately plunged, for a few seconds, into hot ashes, cinders, or sand, of a temperature about equal to that of boiling water, after which they are scraped with a blunt knife, strongly rubbed with a piece of flannel or woollen cloth, and gently ‘stoved,’ they are, lastly, tied up in bundles by women or children. A yellow tinge is often given to them by dipping them for a short time into dilute hydrochloric or nitric acid, or into an infusion of turmeric.
2. Suspend the quills in a copper over water sufficiently high to nearly touch the nibs; then close it steam tight, and apply three or four hours’ hard boiling; next, withdraw the quills, and dry them, and in 24 hours cut the nibs and draw out the pith; lastly, rub them with a piece of cloth, and expose them to a moderate heat in an oven or stove. Quills prepared in this way are as hard as bone, without being brittle, and nearly as transparent as glass. Crow quills and swan quills may be cured in the same manner.
QUI′NA. See Quinine.
QUINAMINE. Syn. Quinamina. C20H26N2O2. This alkaloid was discovered by Hesse, in 1872, in the bark of Cinchona succirubra, cultivated at Darjeeling, in British Sikhim.
Dr de Vrij gives the following process for the preparation of quinamine:—The mixed alkaloids obtained from the red bark are converted into neutral sulphates, and the solution treated with Rochelle salt, whereby the tartrates of quinine and of cinchonidine are separated. After collecting these upon a filter the filtered liquid is shaken with caustic soda and ether. By this process the amorphous alkaloid and the quinamine are dissolved by the ether, with slight traces of cinchonine, whilst the bulk of this last alkaloid remains undissolved. After distilling the ethereal solution the residue is transformed into neutral acetate, and the solution of this mixed with a solution of sulphocyanate of potassium.
By this reaction the sulphocyanate of the amorphous alkaloid is precipitated in the shape of a yellow, soft, resinous substance, whilst the sulphocyanate of quinamine remains dissolved. After subsiding and filtering, the solution is clear and quite colourless, and by addition of caustic soda the quinamine is precipitated. It is then collected upon a filter, washed, and dried. It can now easily be obtained crystallised by dissolving it in boiling spirit, from which it crystallises in cooling. By this process the author obtained 0·38 per cent. of pure quinamine from samples of red cinchona quill bark, which he had received, through the Secretary of State for India, from the plantations in British Sikhim.
QUINCE. Syn. Cydonia, L. The fruit of Cydonia vulgaris, or common quince tree. Its flavour in the raw state is austere, but it forms an excellent marmalade (quince marmalade), and its juice yields an agreeable and wholesome wine. The seed or pips (cydoniæ seminæ; cydonium—Ph. L.) abound in gummy matter, which forms a mucilage with water, and possesses the advantage of not being affected by the salts of iron or alcohol. See Decoction, Fixature, and Jelly.
QUINETUM. The alkaloids contained in the East Indian red bark (Cinchona succirubra) consist of a large percentage of cinchonidine, cinchonine, quinine, and amorphous alkaloid, besides a trace of quinidine, the preponderating alkaloid being cinchonidine.
Dr de Vrij, of the Hague, has devised a process by which these can be extracted in their entirety, and to the mixed alkaloids so obtained the name ‘quinetum’ has been given.
It is affirmed of quinetum that it possesses a remedial value as a tonic and antiperiodic that renders it, in many cases, superior to quinine, ague being one of these; also that it may be advantageously employed in affections