I. Chemical and physiological experiments on living cinchoncœ

On the Neilgherry Mountains in South India are now growing nearly three millions of trees of cinchona of various species. The greater part of these are on plantations belonging to Government, and are the result of the introduction from South America and successful naturalization of these valuable febrifuge-yielding plants by the Government of India, under circumstances which have long since been made public. The chemical investigations which during the last three years have been made, for the purpose of settling the various economic questions connected with the production of the febrifuge constituents of the bark, have led to some conclusions of scientific interest. I have the honour in the subsequent pages of communicating to the Royal Society the most important of these, and the experimental grounds on which they depend. These inquiries have been made under circumstances of great advantage, for the living plants have never before been under the control of the experimenter. The ability to study the changes occurring in the growing tissues cannot fail to throw light on the formation and physiological functions of the chemical constituents whose production is the object of the undertaking.