Or seems to bleat, a vegetable lamb."
Such is the old idea of a well-known fern, Cibotium barometz.
Yet the original researches of some African "Obi" wizard or red Indian were not forgotten, and gradually came into practice.
The Garden of Eden
The title-page of John Parkinson's "Paradisus." In the distance may be seen a Scythian Lamb growing on its tree, and in the foreground many plants are shown as well as Adam and Eve.
It must be remembered that these savages were true scientific experimentalists, and made discoveries which have been of infinite service to mankind. We remember great men like Harvey, Lister, and Pasteur, but we never think of the Indian who discovered quinine.
The quinine trees, the yellow variety or Calisaya cinchona, grow in the mountains of north-eastern Bolivia and south-eastern Peru, in wild, inaccessible places at heights of 5000 to 6000 feet. The Indians probably experimented with almost every part of every wild tree before they discovered the wonderful properties of this particular species. The quinine in nature is probably intended to prevent some fungus or small insect from attacking the bark: when quinine is used in malaria, it kills the fever germ which attacks the blood corpuscles of the sick person, so that it is of the utmost importance in all tropical countries.
When the Jesuit fathers reached Peru and made friends and converts of the Indians, they discovered this remedy. Soon after the Countess de Chinchon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, fell seriously ill of fever and was cured by the use of Jesuit's bark or quinine. It was introduced into Europe about 1638, but for a very long time the entire supply came from South America. The British Indian government were paying some £12,000 every year for South American quinine and, at the same time, the supply was running short, for the Indians were cutting down every tree.