Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

2 O'KeefCe, on the Properties of Dogwood Bark. [January,contain other principles in additionto those discovered by Dr.Walker. During the interim of these examinations, the announcementby Mr. G. W. Carpenter (of Philadelphia) of aproximate alkaline principle, to which the name Cornine wasgiven, tended to stimulate the inquiries of other analysis ;but th6results obtained by these were unfortunately contradictory ofMr. C.'s assertions.Since then, little, if any, has been advanced on the subject,owing doubtless to an over-zeal on the part of its advocates inattributing to itremedial properties which an enlightened experiencecould not sanction. At a time when the labours ofthe profession were engrossed with investigating theessentialprinciples of the Cinchona bark, to have discovered among ournative productions a succedaneum for the expensive exoticswould have been a great desideratum. To accomplish this,much has been extravagantly said, but has detracted in thesame ratio from the intrinsic merits of the bark. Our predecessorsappear to have contented themselves with the effort toestablish a complete identity between the constituent principlesof the Dogwood and Peruvian barks, the efficient virtues of theformer receiving little or no attention. The essential identityof these barks can subserve no practical purpose; for the assumptionof the non-existence in the former, of any principleanalogous to the latter, does not, in the least, invalidate itsclaims to anti-periodic powers. In a practical point of view,it matters not whether their modus operandi on the animaleconomy be identical; the same end is accomplished by both,though it may be in a totally difterent manner. Each mayexert a peculiar influence over disease—an influence sui generis; but from this the conclusion is by no means warrantedthat their proximate principles are analogous, or that theirpower of controlling disease is the same. This peculiar antiperiodicvirtue the Cinchona bark possesses in an eminentdegree: no fact in medicine is better established. In relationto the Dogwood bark, we are not prepared to make this broadassertion;our remarks shall only have reference to one varietyof paroxysmal disease, viz :Intermittent and Remittent fever.For its efficacy in the other varieties of paroxysmal diseasewe cannot vouch ; such, indeed, would be premature and un-