trophy brought
back by Lorenzo, like the olive-leaves in the beak of Noah's dove. One
of these specimens was a variety of the _Carua-carua,_ with large
leaves heavily veined: the other was an individual resembling those
quinquinas which the botanists Ruiz and Pavon have discriminated from
the cinchonas, to make a separate family called the _Quinquina
cosmibuena._ After all, the discovery was rather an indication than a
conquest of value. The examinador admitted as much, but observed that
the presence of these baser species always argued the neighborhood of
genuine quinine-yielding plants near by.

In the presence of this first success on the part of the exploration set
on foot by Don Juan Sanz de Santo Domingo, we may insert a few words on
the nature of the wonderful plant toward which its researches were
directed.

It is doubtful whether the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru, Bolivia and
Ecuador were acquainted with the virtues of the cinchona plant as a
febrifuge. It seems probable, nevertheless, that the Indians of Loxa,
two hundred and thirty miles south of Peru, were aware of the qualities
of the bark, for there its use was first made known to Europeans. It was
forty years after the pacification of Peru however, before any
communication of the remedial secret was made to the Spaniards. Joseph
de Jussieu reports that in 1600 a Jesuit, who had a fever at Malacotas,
was cured by Peruvian bark. In 1638 the countess Ana of Chinchon was
suffering from tertian fever and ague at Lima, whither she had
accompanied the viceroy, her husband. The corregidor of Loxa, Don Juan
Lopez de Canizares, sent a parcel of powdered quinquina bark to her
physician, Juan de Vega, assuring him that it was a sovereign and
infallible remedy for "tertiana." It was administered to the countess,
who was sixty-two years of age, and effected a complete cure. This
countess, returning with her husband to Spain in 1640, brought with her
a quantity of the healing bark. Hence it was sometimes called
"countess's bark" and "countess's powder." Her famous cure induced
Linnaeus, long after, to name the whole genus of quinine-bearing trees,
in her honor, _Cinchona_. By modern writers the first _h_ has usually
been dropped, and the word is now almost invariably spelled in that way,
instead of the more etymological _Chinchona_. The Jesuits afterward made
great and effective use of it in their missionary expeditions, and it
was a ludicrous result of their patron