ROMANCE OF QUININE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 229, 24 November 1916, Page 6 (Supplement)

ROMANCE OF QUININE.

THE DRUG THAT BUILT UP TH BRITISH EMPIRE. Nearly three bonded years ago tl Countess Cinchona, the young an beautiful wife of the Spanish Vioero of Peru, lay at death's door of a feTO And after the regular doctors ha done their best—and worst —by cuj ping, bleeding, and so forth, sne wa cured by a bitter decoction of the bar of a tree given her by her Indian sei rant. She took some of the bark to Spaii Gradually the use of it as a medicSn spread throughout Europe and Lii naeus, the great Swedish botanig named the tree from which it cam< Cinchona, in her honour. The tree is still so called, but th drug prepared from the bark is know as quinine, from the old Peruvia name, "quina-quina," which mean "bark of barks." It is the literal truth that this man vellous medicine built up the Britis Empire. Quinine won us India, b< cause without its aid in conquerin fevers. British troops could not hav lived and fougHt there. Still more did it win us Africa. Ther are vast districts in the heart of tha continent where even now no whit man dare venture Without taking wit him a plentiful supply of the preciou drug. Quinine was almost food an( drink to Kitchener's army on the toii some march to Khartum. Without i the Soudan could not hare been wo: to civilisation.

The reason, of course, is that malai ial and other fevers, the curse of mo« tropical countries, are spread by mo< quitoes. and quinine kills the dise*J germs that the insects introduce the blood.