Decorative floral ornament at the top of the page.

§. XI.

The Kingdom of Quito, especially near Loxa in Peruvian America, provides a tree whose febrifuge fever-reducing virtue of its bark became known to the Indian people long ago, as M. Antonio Bollus, a Genoese merchant, reports in his letter written in Italian. But from this time, when Christopher Columbus first discovered this part of the world, until the year of Christ 1600, this great remedy was industriously hidden due to the hatred of the Indians toward the Europeans, and the Spaniards most of all. However, the same author narrates how this remedy, clearly divine, was revealed to the Spaniards and other Europeans. Namely, in the city of Lima, which is the metropolis of the Peruvian kingdom, the wife of the Viceroy, who at that time was the Count del Chinchon, was seized by a most savage tertian fever and seemed to be lying fatally ill. The rumor spread through the city and finally reached the surroundings as far as Loxa. The Spanish Prefect of that place at that time warned the Viceroy by letter that he had a remedy in his secrets, by whose aid he promised the Vicereine would recover immediately. The Vicereine very willingly took the prepared bark, and, faster than said, she recovered, to the astonishment of all. After the Viceroy, having finished his tenure, returned, a rumor immediately spread about this new febrifuge, which, after frequent experiments, always and everywhere answered the prayers of the sick. Around the year of Salvation 1649, it advanced its fame more and more every day, not only through Spain but also Italy, as far as Rome, thanks especially to the efforts of Cardinal John de Lugo, S.J., and other Fathers of the same Society, who distributed it for free to the poor and the religious. And this is the bark most famous in the minds of the learned, but most loathsome to the ignorant vulgar.

§. XII.

Now follows the Protean genius of Mercury. Which is an opaque fluid, the heaviest of all liquids; and about this, the highest talents of the chemists present the following: 1st, that Mercury is the heaviest of all bodies after gold. 2nd, the simplest body of all.