A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology, with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H.C. Wood, jr.

Wood, H. C., Jr. (Horatio C.), 1841-1920.

Date:: 1874

Credit: A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology, with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H.C. Wood, jr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

74/592 (page 68)

$malaria or of the method of its action, and as we are very partially informed as to the elfects of quinia upon the healthy organism, it seems to me perfectly futile to endeavor to explain why it averts a paroxysm of intermittent. I shall not, therefore, occupy space with such discussion. The present seems, however, the fitting place to notice the discovery of Dr. H. Bence Jones in regard to the existence of a body similar to quinia in the animal organism. Quinia and its salts have the remarkable property of converting rays of heat into light, or, in other words, of rendering visible the ordinary invisible rays of the solar or other spectrum. Connected with this fact is probably the phenomenon known as the fluorescence of quinia. When a colorless watery solution of one of its salts is examined, a pale-blue line upon the surface is very noticeable, and Prof Stokes has shown that solution of quinia has the power of entirely stopping certain of the rays of light, so that when a beam is transmitted through it to light up a second vessel of the solution, this latter displays no fluorescence. Dr. H. Bence Jones {Lectures on Pathology and TJierapeutics, London, 1867) has found that when the electric Hght is used this test is so delicate that one grain of the alkaloid may be detected in 1,450,000 grains of water. He has also discovered that man and ani- mals are pervaded by a substance which, in its action on light and in many chemical reactions, very closely resembles, if it be not identical with, quinia. Believing this substance to be probably an alkaloid, he has given it the name of anijnal quinoidine. Drs. Edward Rhoads and William Pepper, Jr. (^Penn- sylvania Hospital Reports, vol. i., 1868), have made observations upon ten cases of malarial fevers in which no quinia had been used, and have found the fluorescence of the blood to be from 0 to 1J instead of from 3 to 6, which is said to be normal. The significance of these results is at once apparent; but before sufficient grounds shall have been obtained to build a theory upon, far more extended researches on the variance of the fluorescence in health and in diseases other than malarial are necessary. Especially is this the case since Dr. Chalvet {Sclimidt's Jahrbueher, Bd. cxli. p. 152, from Gazette Heh- domadaire, 2d series, t. v., 1868) has found that this fluorescent body exists in various foods and even in wine, and is therefore probably not of animal but of vegetable origin. Quinia in its relations to vialarial fever may be considered, first, as a pro- phylactic, secondly, as a curative agent. _ The value of the daily use of quinia to persons exposed to a malarial atmosphei-e has now been thoroughly tested in all portions of the wor d In North and South America, in Europe, in Africa, in India, the prophy ac ic powers of quinia have been tried on the largest scale i.i connection with he military and naval services, and the testimony is unanimous in favor of he dru. A single citation will serve to illustrate this feet. Dr. J B. Hamilton (Mau MecUcal Gazette, Nov. 1, 1873) reports the case of a battery of one hundred and thirty-five men, quartered at Jubbulpore East Indies, in Z^^^^^^^^^^^-^- Each of theai-tUlerists received$