queezing the remains of the boiled
lemon, and set aside for some hours to cool. The whole amount of the
liquid is then taken fasting. It is well known that in Italy, Greece, and
North Africa, they often use lemon juice or a decoction of lemon seeds, as
a remedy in malarial fevers of moderate intensity; and in Guadaloupe they
use for the same purpose a decoction of the bark of the roots of the lemon
tree. All these popular practices tend to show that the lemon tree
produces a febrifuge substance, which resides in all parts of the plant,
but which would seem to be most abundant in the fruit. In fact, among the
popular remedies employed against malarial infection, that which I have
just described is the most efficacious, for it can be employed with good
effects in acute fevers. But it is especially advantageous in combating
the chronic infection, which is rebellious to the action of quinine, and
in removing or moderating its deplorable effects.

Hardly had I learned of this method of medication, when I hastened to
induce some proprietors in the Roman Campagna to try it with their farm
hands; and, after witnessing the good results there, I endeavored to
persuade practitioners to make a trial of the same treatment. I was
ridiculed a little at first, for they thought it rather singular that a
professor should be trying to popularize on old woman's remedy. In reply
to that I answered that practical medicine would not have existed, had it
not known how to treasure up from age to age the facts of popular
experience; and I ventured to remark that, had the Countess de Chinchon
waited until methodical researches had been made into the physiological
action of cinchona bark, before popularizing the remedy, the use of which
she had learned from the semi-barbarous Peruvians, in all probability
humanity would still, as regards malaria, be dependent upon the medication
practiced in the middle ages. Happily these arguments had the desired
effect upon certain distinguished practitioners, some of whom, especially
in Sicily and Tuscany, have already collected together a tolerably large
number of very encouraging observations. One of them, Dr. Mascagni, of
Avezzo, tried the remedy in his own person, and succeeded in promptly
curing an obstinate malarial fever which had resisted the action of
quinine.

Gentlemen, in dealing with malaria we ought always to hold popular
experience in high esteem, for we owe much to it. We owe to it the fact
tha