Brady, professor of physic at Cambridge, prescribed bark about this time; and in 1660, Willis, a physician of great eminence, reported it as coming into daily use. This is also evidenced, with regard to the continent, by the pharmaceutical tariffs of the cities of Leipzig and Frankfurt of the year 1669, where “China Chinæ” has a place. ⅛ of an ounce (a “quint”) is quoted in the latter at 50 kreuzers (about 1s. 6d.), whereas the same quantity of opium is valued at 4 kreuzers,[1309] camphor 2 kreuzers, balsam of Peru 8 kreuzers.
Among those who contributed powerfully to the diffusion of the new medicine, was Robert Talbor alias Tabor. In his “Pyretologia” (see Appendix, T.) he by no means intimates that his method of cure depends on the use of bark. On the contrary, he cautions his readers against the dangerous effects of Jesuit’s Powder when administered by unskilful persons, yet admits that, properly given, it is a “noble and safe medicine.”
Talbor’s reputation increasing, he was appointed in 1678 physician in ordinary to Charles II., and in 1679, the king being ill of tertian fever at Windsor, Talbor cured him by his secret remedy.[1310] He acquired similar favour in France, and upon Talbor’s death (1681), Louis XIV. ordered the publication of his method of cure, which accordingly appeared by Nicolas de Blegny, surgeon to the king.[1311] This was immediately translated into English, under the title of The English Remedy: or, Talbor’s Wonderful Secret for Cureing of Agues and Feavers.—Sold by the Author Sir Robert Talbor to the most Christian King and since his Death, ordered by his Majesty to be published in French, for the benefit of his subjects, and now translated into English for Publick Good (Lond. 1682).
Cinchona bark was now accepted into the domain of regular medicine, though its efficacy was by no means universally acknowledged. It first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia in 1677, under the name of Cortex Peruanus.
For the first accurate information on the botany of Cinchona, science is indebted to the French.[1312]
Charles-Marie de la Condamine, while occupied in common with Bouguer and Godin, as an astronomer from 1736 to 1743, in measuring the arc of a degree near Quito, availed himself of the opportunity to investigate the origin of the famous Peruvian Bark. On the 3rd and 4th of February, 1737, he visited the Sierra de Cajanuma, 2½ leagues from Loxa, and there collected specimens of the tree now known as Cinchona officinalis var. a. Condaminea. At that period the very large trees had already become rare, but there were still specimens having trunks thicker than a man’s body. Cajanuma was the home of the first cinchona bark brought to Europe; and in early times it enjoyed such a reputation, that certificates drawn up before a notary were provided as proof that parcels of bark were the produce of that favoured locality.
Joseph de Jussieu, botanist to the French expedition with which La Condamine was connected, gathered, near Loxa in 1739, a second Cinchona subsequently named by Vahl C. pubescens, a species of no medicinal value.
In 1742 Linnæus established the genus Cinchona,[1313] and in 1753 first described the species C. officinalis, recently restored and exactly characterized by Hooker, aided by specimens supplied to him by Mr. Howard.
The cinchona trees were believed to be confined to the region around Loxa, until 1752 when Miguel de Santisteban, superintendent of the mint at Santa Fé, discovered some species in the neighbourhood of Popayan and Pasto.
In 1761 José Celestino Mutis, physician to the Marquis de la Vega, viceroy of New Granada, arrived at Carthagena from Cadiz, and immediately set about collecting materials for writing a Flora of the country. This undertaking he carried on with untiring energy, especially from the year 1782 until the end of his life in 1808,—first for seven years at Real del Sapo and Mariquita at the foot of the Cordillera de Quindiu, and subsequently at Santa Fé de Bogotá. Mutis gave up his medical appointment in 1772, for the purpose of entering a religious order, and ten years later was entrusted by the Government with the establishment and direction of a large museum of natural history, first at Mariquita, afterwards at Santa Fé.