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   Cinchona or Peruvian bark was introduced into Europe as a medicinal remedy about the year 1820. Its best known alkaloid is quinin.

   Probably no drug has been more popular, both with the medical profession and the laity, than quinin. In many sections of the country especially those affected by catarrhal diseases or malarial fevers, the drug is taken as freely and regularly as an ordinary condiment. People are surprised when told that it is a powerful poison, and that when taken continuously, even in small doses, it will produce a variety of serious chronic ailments, such as indigestion, constipation, rheumatism and neuralgia, deafness, color blindness and total blindness, irritability, neurasthenia and insanity.

   In consultation with the doctor, patients are told that the drug is harmless, while the lecturer in classroom, and materia medica, describe in detail the cumulative effects of this and other poisonous agents. They picture with terrible realism the symptoms of chronic mercurialism, iodism, bromism, cinchonism, the cocaine, chloral and morphin habits, and then continue prescribing these drugs as though they were as innocent as bonbons.

   The diagnosis from the iris brings proof positive of the cumulative and destructive effects of these agents. I have previously called attention to the fact that every substance poisonous to the human organism, if taken repeatedly or in sufficient quantity, manifests in the iris by peculiar signs and colors easily recognized by the trained eye. These signs and colors diminish and disappear when the corresponding poisons are eliminated from the system, accompanied by their own peculiar crisis manifestations. This is proof positive that these poisonous drugs are not eliminated as quickly and thoroughly as the allopathic physician tries to make himself believe.

   Next to iodin, the presence of quinin in the body is more readily recognized in the iris than that of any other poisonous substance. It shows as a yellowish discoloration, sometimes whitish and sometimes approaching in hue a reddish brown, according to the chemical combinations it has entered into. It shows particularly and most prominently in the brain, eyes, ears, stomach and bowels, indicating that it has a strong affinity for these parts and organs. In old malarial cases it also shows in the areas of liver and spleen. (Color plate, fig. c, page 116.)

   When we see the signs of the drug in the iris of a patient we need only take any materia medica and read the typical symptoms of cinchonism or chronic quinin poisoning and the patient will confess to most of them. Let us take, for instance, "The Materia Medica and Therapeutics", by J. Mitchell Bruce, published by W. T. Keener and Co., Chicago.

   On page 315 he says:

   "The obvious phenomena produced by a full dose (15 to 30 gr.) of quinin are not by any means its most important effects. It acts most strikingly upon the nervous centers, and causes confusion of the mental faculties, noises in the ears and deafness, disorders of vision (color blindness), headache, giddiness, vomiting, and possibly prostration from involvement of the cord and circulation. . . ."

   Page 316:

   "Quinin appears to reduce the amount of nitrogenous excretions, of urea and uric acid, and probably also of carbonic acid, as determined both in healthy and fevered animals, and in man.

   "These two sets of effects, taken together, point to a powerful action of quiuin in reducing the metabolism of the body, of which heat and excretions are the two most measurable products. . . . (Author's note: This confirms my claim that all antipyretics and antiseptics are protoplasmic poisons.) . . . We may, therefore, conclude that the effect of quinin in the body is to check metabolism by interfering with the oxidation of protoplasm generally, with oxygenation, and with the associated actions of ferments. Thus the fall of temperature produced by quinin is due to the diminished production of heat in the body, not to increased loss of heat."

   Fever heat contracts the surface capillaries, tightly closes the skin and its organs, and thus prevents heat radiation. Therefore we have in fevers a dry, hot surface. The drug, by "reducing the metabolism", which means paralysis of the vital functions, suppresses the heat that is burning up the morbid matter in the system. The cold wet packs and cold ablutions do not interfere with inner heat production. They cool and relax the skin, its pores and capillaries, thereby facilitating heat radiation and the elimination of impurities from the blood. The following quotations from "Essentials of Materia Medica and Therapeutics", by H. Norris, M. D. (Allopath), are very significant, revealing in every paragraph the law of double effect* in the immediate and remote effects of quinin on the human organism. It must be remembered that all drugs taken in small doses accumulate in the system and concentrate in certain part's for which they exhibit a special affinity and then constantly exert the influence of large doses. (*See Vol. I, Chapter VII, Laws of Cure--Law of double effect.)

   The notes in parenthesis in the following paragraphs are by myself.

   "Locally, cinchona and its alkaloids are irritant and antiseptic, destroying minute organisms or inhibiting their movements.

   "Internally it acts on the alimentary canal as a simple bitter, in small doses increasing the appetite and digestion; if long continued, producing indigestion and gastric catarrh. (Note double effect. In ordinary doses cinchona constipates. In large doses cinchona or its alkaloids irritate the mucous membrane and cause vomiting and diarrhea followed by chronic constipation.)

   "Nutrition is stimulated and the excretion of waste products increased by small doses; large doses, however, diminish the amount of urea and uric and phosphoric acids in the urine. In malarial fever the products of waste tissue are much decreased. (Thus interfering with elimination.)

   "In the blood it interferes with the oxygen-carrying function of the red corpuscles, and diminishes their number, inhibits the movements and prevents the migration of the white corpuscles, both in health and disease. (If the allopath believes in the theory of phagocytosis, why prevent the migration of the leukocytes?)

   "Circulation: in small doses the cardiac action is increased; large doses, by acting on the cardiac motor ganglia, depress the heart, sometimes causing it to intermit, and finally arrest it in diastole; the blood pressure is lowered. (This means death.)

   "The temperature in health is very slightly influenced, if at all; in fevers a rapid decline takes place, due to the depressive action on the blood and circulation.

   "Nervous system: small doses stimulate the cerebral functions, large doses cause cinchonism, i. e., a constricted feeling in the forehead, giddiness and tinnitus aurium (ringing in the ears), with impairment of hearing and sometimes of vision: after toxic doses these symptoms are aggravated and delirium, weak pulse, coma, sometimes convulsions, and in rare cases, death, supervene. It probably reduces the reflex excitability of the spinal cord.

   "Cutaneous eruptions, as erythema, urticaria or herpes, are produced in some subjects by even small doses of cinchona or its alkaloids." (These eruptions appear when the drug is eliminated under natural methods, in healing crises.)

   From these various quotations it plainly appears that quinin is an antiseptic, germ killer and anti-fever remedy because it is a protoplasmic poison; it benumbs, paralyzes and kills the red corpuscles, depresses the heart and the respiratory centers, and in brief, reduces the fever symptoms because it retards all the vital functions. It "cures" catarrh because it acts as an astringent on the mucous membranes--that is, it contracts and paralyzes the cells and glandular structures of these membranes so that they cannot throw off the morbid matter which Nature is trying to eliminate.

   Medical students in our colleges are constantly warned not to give quinin in large or continued doses to railroad men, because it may cause color blindness and deafness. They are told this might cause a misunderstanding of color signals and thereby produce railroad accidents. Whether or not other people become color blind and deaf does not seem to be a matter of importance to the medical practitioner.

   Not long ago there appeared before our public clinic a woman about forty years of age who asked for a diagnosis from the eye. Both eyes were yellow with the typical quinin color (see color plate, fig. c, p. 116) and the regions of throat, lungs and bronchi displayed the dark signs of chronic and destructive catarrhal conditions.

   We told her at once, without a word of information from her, that she was thoroughly poisoned by quinin and that in consequence she was suffering with bad chronic catarrhal conditions, bordering on tuberculosis.

   "Yes," she said, "I have been coughing and expectorating for a year and the doctors tell me that 1 have consumption. Two years ago I was a perfectly well woman and strong as a man. My husband died with consumption and I, after reading some medical books, began to fear that he had infected me with the disease. The books told me that quinin was a good preventive against catarrhs, coughs and tuberculosis. Although there was nothing the matter with me at the time, I took large doses of it without a doctor's prescription, and kept on taking it until one day I dropped, senseless, on the floor. A doctor was called and after hearing my story told me I had taken too much quinin; that I was suffering from the chronic after effects of the drug. I then began to cough and have grown worse ever since."

   In this case, without doubt, the drug which was taken to prevent the disease produced it in its most terrible reality.

   The perfection of the microscope and the discovery of microorganisms of disease gave a new and great impetus to allopathic science. In the germ theory of disease was found the solution of all therapeutic riddles, proof positive of the fallacy of the teachings of Hahnemann and a perfect justification of allopathic symptomatic and surgical treatment of disease. One of the favorite bits of evidence always produced in favor of these theories is the specific action of quinin in malarial diseases. "The Plasmodium Malariae is found in the blood of malaria patients, quinin kills the Plasmodium and the fever symptoms abate (temporarily) ; therefore is the Plasmodium the cause of the malaria and quinin the cure for it."

   In like manner, other specific germs are supposed to be the causes of the diseases after which they are named; hence the formula, "Find chemicals or serums to kill the bacteria, and cure the disease."

   Let us see if this reasoning is true in the case of malaria and quinin. The allopathic theory is supported by the fact that almost all Northerners who go to certain hot and moist lowland districts in tropical countries are affected by this and other tropical fevers. This seems to be sufficient proof that the cause of the disease lies entirely in certain parasitic germs, peculiar to these districts, and in the presence of mosquitoes which convey these germs into human blood.

   The diagnosis from the eye, as repeatedly stated, reveals the fact that the majority of human beings are more or less affected and encumbered with inherited and acquired disease taints and morbid matter. These chronic encumbrances are more pronounced in the inhabitants or colder zones, because the colder temperature retards acute elimination and because the greater consumption of meat, pork, coffee, tea and liquors, and the almost entire absence of eliminating fruits from the daily dietary, favor the accumulation of waste and morbid matter, which forms a luxuriant soil for all sorts of disease germs.

   When such persons arrive in the hot, moist, malarial lowlands of tropical climates, the malarial parasites and other disease germs find congenial soil in the morbid matter of their systems and produce the peculiar fermentative processes of yellow fever, cholera, malaria, etc.

   That these germs grow and thrive in morbid blood only, has been proved by hundreds of European vegetarians who have emigrated to tropical countries. They live in localities known as the worst fever districts in the world, in perfect immunity from tropical disorders, while their meat-eating, liquor-and-coffee-drinking, tobacco-smoking and quinin-eating countrymen fall an easy prey to all tropical diseases and usually within a few years return to Europe ruined in health physically and mentally.

   When I was a student in medical college Dr. C. was one of our professors on Materia Medica. He was an old, experienced physician and in theory and practice a thorough allopath, but he never employed quinin in the treatment of malaria.

   How he learned to prevent and to cure this disease without drugs was one of his favorite stories. "In my younger days," he said, "before I took up the study of medicine, I traveled with a government exploring expedition through some of the worst malarial districts of Old Mexico and South America. One day I befriended a native and in return for some kindness I had shown him, he taught me how to avoid the malaria and other tropical fevers. He told me to keep my bowels open by avoiding meat and by eating plenty of fruit, and to guard against chilling at night by keeping myself well covered with woolen blankets. I followed his advice, ate plenty of fruit, kept myself well covered, so that all through the night my body was in a state of semi-perspiration, and I never contracted the fever or took a single dose of quinin. My companions would lie naked in the heated part of the tropical night, fall asleep and expose their bodies to the early morning chills. This suppressed the excretions of the skin and brought on the ague."

   His experience certainly proved that the malaria parasites grow in morbid blood only. As long as he kept skin and bowels active, the germs found nothing to feed on. He always added that since he began the practice of medicine, many of his patients had prevented and cured malaria by following the same simple directions.

   After telling his story, however, the same good doctor would turn around and give a baby, two years old, a dose of quinin for a simple cold.

   A medical student who heard me repeat this story tried to explain the doctor's experience as follows: "The particular kind of mosquito which carries the malaria germ is active only during the night. Keeping the body covered while asleep prevented infection." This argument does not hold good, because the little pests are awake and busy during the evening hours and in the early morning as well as during the night.

   Some years ago I happened to attend a clinic in a neighboring college. One of the patients was a young man about thirty years of age, a cigar maker by trade. Examination brought, out an imposing array of nervous symptoms. The unanimous verdict of the assembled doctors and students was "neurasthenia". The professor in charge of the clinic asked for a definition of "neurasthenia".

   Having listened to a long recital of nervous and mental symptoms he said, "In my last paper before the -------- County Medical Association I described this mysterious modern nervous derangement as follows:

   "A patient suffers from a multitude of nervous symptoms: headaches, backaches, neuro-muscular weakness, the feeling of weight on the brain, mental irritability, ringing in the ears, insomnia, etc. You cannot find any local or constitutional diseases to account for the nervous symptoms; in fact you do not know what ails the patient--that is neurasthenia."

   In the meantime I, myself, examined the eyes of our subject and the professor asked me for my diagnosis of the case. I gave it as my opinion that the man was suffering from chronic cinchonism, or quinin poisoning. Asked what made me think so, I replied that the iris showed very prominently the yellow color of quinin in the regions of stomach, intestines, liver and spleen. The two last named organs also showed signs of inflammation and enlargement, which usually go with chronic quinin poisoning. To corroborate the diagnosis I asked the patient if he had suffered from malaria. "Oh, yes," he answered, "I lived in the South and suffered with malaria for four years, and had to come north on account of it."

   "Did you take much quinin?"

   "Yes, almost daily, for four years."

   I then asked him for other symptoms of chronic cinchonism as given in standard materia medica; he admitted that he suffered from practically all of them. Having finished my examination, I remarked to the professor that the history of the patient, as well as his symptoms, seemed to justify my diagnosis.

   The professor dismissed the subject with the curt reply: "That was orthodox treatment; it has nothing to do with our diagnosis."

   It may seem harsh to "tell tales out of school", but this happened in open clinic, within the hearing of the patient. What about the hundreds and thousands of other patients who must suffer all their lives on account of that sort of diagnosis and treatment?

   Three years ago a lady brought her husband to us for examination. His mind was in a weakened condition so that he could not act for himself. The best physicians in her home city in Wisconsin, and two of the great nerve specialists in Chicago had examined the patient and told her that his mental breakdown was caused by overwork. The Chicago "specialists" had charged her fifty dollars apiece for looking at him and making this profound diagnosis. Nowadays "the strenuous life" is made the scapegoat for a good many troubles that are beyond the ken of the "expert" and "specialist".

   On examining the iris I found the yellow color of quinin in the areas of brain, liver and spleen; also to some extent in the stomach and bowels, indicating heavy quinin poisoning. When I informed the lady that her husband was suffering from chronic quinin poisoning, she answered, "This may be possible, because during the last few years he has taken quinin almost daily to cure his hay fever. A doctor gave him a quinin prescription for this purpose and after that he kept on taking it of his own accord." This left no doubt about the correctness of the records in the iris.

   The case proved to be beyond redemption. Before death liberated him from his earthly suffering he had to pass for a year through the revolting conditions which characterize the gradual breaking down of the brain tissues, labeled "paresis" by the medical profession. This man came from an exceptionally healthy family. He himself had never been sick in his life until he began to suffer from hay fever. His habits of living had been very temperate and he was known as one of the best all-round college athletes in his state. Surely the work of a cashier in a small town bank was not sufficient to cause physical and mental breakdown in a man of that type.

Allopathic Uses:*
   (*Europe annually imports 500,000 lbs. of Cinchona bark.)

   1. Appetizer and bitter tonic during convalescence, general debility, and while taking depressing remedies like mercury, lead, etc.

   2. Against all febrile diseases, especially malaria and all conditions resulting from same. "Of unquestionable value if freely administered."

   3. Against splenic leukemia.

   4. Local anesthetic, injected with urea hydrochlorid for minor surgical operations--used instead of cocain.

   5. Rectal injection against amoebic dysentery.

   6. Against painful nervous conditions. "Shows well marked effects, acting as cardiac and central nervous depressant."

   7. Menstrual stimulant and abortive.

Accidental Poisoning:

   Malarial preventatives.

   Patent tonics. Hair tonics.

Toxicology:

   "Converted in the stomach into quinin hydrochlorid, a readily diffusible salt which enters the blood stream within a few minutes after ingestion. Decreases functional activity of all forms of protoplasm. Reduces number of leukocytes. (Hence its suppressive action on inflammatory processes.) Binds oxygen more firmly to hemoglobin thus interfering with proper oxygenation and decreasing the nitrogenous output."

   Clearly therefore, quinin reduces temperature by suppressing the production and not by facilitating the liberation of heat.

   The most important symptoms of Cinchonism (chronic quinin poisoning) are the following:

   1. Congested frontal headaches.

   2. Sensation of fullness or pressure at top of head.

   3. Ringing in ears.

   4. Disturbances of vision (dilatation of pupils with imperfect response to accommodative effect). Color-blindness.

   5. Gastro-intestinal and renal irritation oft accompanied by hemoglobinuria.

   6. Itchy skin eruptions.

   7. Restless, unfreshing sleep, dizziness, drowsiness and debility.

   8. Nervousness, neurasthenia and insanity. Note the similarity between cinchonism and neurasthenia.

Elimination of Drug in Healing Crises:

   1. Through the skin causing itchy eruptions resembling scarlatina or measles.

   2. Through the kidneys as amorphous alkaloid which irritates urinary passages, often causing hematuria.

   Elimination of drug in healing crises is frequently accompanied by taste of the drug in the mouth.

   3. Through acute catarrhal elimination, purging and hemorrhoidal discharges.

Signs in Iris:

   The drug shows most prominently in the brain region in yellow pigments ranging from whitish to reddish tints; variation probably due to chemical admixtures. In severe poisoning the yellowish discolorations show also in stomach, intestines, liver and spleen, in the latter organs especially in cases of chronic malaria. (Color plate, fig. c, page 116.)

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