and figured by Jacquin * and Dr. Wright f ; it grows in
Jamaica, where it is called the Sea Side Beech. According
to Dr. Wright, the Bark of this tree is not lefs efficacious
than that of the Cinchona of Peru, for which it will prove
an uieful fubftitute; but by the experiments of Dr.
Skeete it appears to have lefs aftringent power J. The
Cinchona floribunda, or Bark tree of St. Lucie, a figure of
which we find in Phil. Tranf. alfo in Rozier’s Obfervations
fur la Phyfique, affords a Bark which is likewife faid to
have been ufed with advantage; but notwithftanding all
that has been written to eftabliffi its medicinal character §,
it feems to us greatly inferior to that of the other fpecies
of this genus. In its recent ftate it is confiderably emetic
and cathartic; properties, which in fome degree it retains
on being dried; fo that the ftomach does not bear this
Bark in large dofes, and in fmall ones its effects are not
fuch as to give it any peculiar recommendation. Several
fpecies of Cinchona have lately been difcovered at
Santa Fe, yielding Barks both of the pale and red kind;
and which, from their fenfible qualities, are likely upon
trial to become equally ufeful with thofe produced in the
kingdom of Peru ||.
* Amer.Pift. tab. 23.
f Phil. Tranf. vol. 67.
t Exper. p. 339.
§ See Kentifh. Exp. and Obferv. on the Peruvian Bark. Davidfon in Phil. Tranf.
vol. 74. and Tranf. of the American Phil. Soc. vol. 2. Mallet in Mem. fur le
Quinquina de la Martinique, &c.
{1 See Memoria o Difiertazione fopra la nuova China del regno de St. Fe, &c.
At
At prefent the ufe o f the Bark is chiefly confined to the
pale and red kind ; and the nearer the former refembles
the latter, the more it is efteemed.
“ The Peruvian Bark yields its virtues both to cold and
boiling water ; but the decoCtion is thicker, gives outfits
tafte more readily, and forms an ink with a chalybeate
more fuddenly than the frefh cold infufion. This infu-
fion, however, contains at leaft as much extractive matter,
but more in a ftate of folution ; and its colour on Handing
with the chalybeate becomes darker, while that of the
decoCtion becomes more faint: When they are of a certain
age, the addition of a chalybeate renders them green ;
and when this is the cafe, they are found to be in a ftate of
fermentation, and effete. Mild or cauftic alkalies, or lime,
precipitate the extractive matter, which in the cafe o f the
cauftic alkali is re-diffolved by a farther addition of the alkali.
Lime-water precipitates lefs from a frefh infufion
than from a frefh decoCtion ; and in the precipitate of this
lall fome mild earth is perceptible. The infufion is by
age reduced to the fame ftate with the frefh decoCtion,
and then they depofit nearly an equal quantify'' of mild
earth and extractive matter ; fo that lime-water as well as
chalybeate may be ufed as a teft of the relative ftrength
and perifhable nature of the different preparations, and of
different Barks. Accordingly, cold infufions are found by
experiments to be lefs perifhable than decoCtions ; infufions
and decoCtions of the red Bark, than thofe of the
pale : thofe o f the red Bark, however, are found by length
of