Pratiques et croyances médicales des Malgaches / par Gershon Ramisiray.
- Ramisiray, Gershon.
- Date:
- 1901
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Pratiques et croyances médicales des Malgaches / par Gershon Ramisiray. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![agues.” Nothing further is known of the Chelsea plant. In the collections of the Department of Botany there is a specimen of Cinchona officinalis from Philip Miller’s herbarium. Miller was appointed gardener at Chelsea Physic Garden in 1722, and we know that dried specimens of the early plants were kept and that one of the conditions of Sir Hans Sloane making over the Garden to the Apothecaries’ Society in 1722 at a nominal rental of £5 was that fifty herbarium specimens annually should be presented to the Royal Society. No data are given on the herbarium sheet, and there is thns a remote possibility that the specimen may be from the tree Evelyn saw : there is no specimen among the tributary specimens which are now in the Department. The botanical reference to the bark in John Ray’s “ Historia Plantarum ” (1688) is : “ Arbor febrifuga Peruviana China Chinae & Quinquina & Gannan peride dicta, Hispanis Palos de calentura, Cortex arboris Cortex Peruvianus vulgo dicitur, inque pulverum redactus Pulvis Patrum [Sci. Jesuitarum] & Pulvis Cardinalis de Lugo. Angl. The Jesuits’ Powder. The account is mainly concerned with the medical history of the bark. Sir Hans Sloane was an advocate of the use of the bark, and owing to his eminence played a considérable part in obtain- ing proper récognition of its properties. His catalogue of barks has a reference to Jesuits’ powder and three to bark “The Jesuits’ bark from the Island of Providence” ; “ China Chini, Guinana peribe, Jesuits’ bark, China China ” ; and 4* The Bark of ye Tree wch ye Malabars call Ette and wch I think to be ye Jesuits’ bark but not colected in a good time nor from a large flourishing tree.” The last specimens are of considérable interest because of the reference to Malabar : it remains to be proved whether they are Cinchona bark, and if so whether there is any additional evidence that the plant was introduced so early into India. In Sloane’s herbarium there are two plants referred to Ray’s Arbor febrifuga Peruviana and a third number is crossed out. Ail three plants are from L. Plukenet’s herbarium and are given in his 44 Almagestum Botanicum ” (1696) as Agerato affinis Peruviana frutescens, and also hgured but with an idealised fruit. This is Iva frutescens, which according to Britton and Brown’s 44 Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, etc.” (1913) has the popular names marsh elder, high-water shrub, Jesuits’ or false Jesuits’ bark. It is remarkable that Sloane should hâve been mistaken in referring Quinaquina to this species, and the fact that it is mentioned in the Oxford](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30599337_0120.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
