Besides demonstrating the importance of the apostrophe, this item, which appeared in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette on January 2, 1750, advertises "very good Jesuit's bark," but what in the world is Jesuit's bark? According to Wikipedia, it's the bark of the cinchona tree, one of the most important medical discoveries in history:
Circa 1650, the physician Sebastiano Bado declared that this bark had proved more precious to mankind than all the gold and silver that the Spaniards had obtained from South America, and the world confirmed his opinion. In the 1700s, the Italian professor of medicine Ramazzini said that the introduction of Peruvian bark would be of the same importance to medicine that the discovery of gunpowder was to the art of war, an opinion endorsed by contemporary writers on the history of medicine. Whoever has searched the annals of cinchona will recognize the truth of the following observations of Weddel (d. 1877): "Few subjects in natural history have excited general interest in a higher degree than cinchona; none perhaps have hitherto merited the attention of a greater number of distinguished men". Dissension, however, was rife at the time, mainly due to its source of discovery, the Jesuits. As the great Alexander von Humboldt said, "It almost goes without saying that among Protestant physicians hatred of the Jesuits and religious intolerance lie at the bottom of the long conflict over the good or harm effected by Peruvian Bark".
The Spanish Jesuit missionaries in Peru were taught the healing power of the bark by natives, between 1620 and 1630 when a Jesuit at Loxa was indebted to its use for his cure from an attack of malaria (Loxa Bark). It was used at the recommendation of the Jesuits in 1630, when the Countess of Chinchon (Cinchon; the derivative is Cinchona, the appellation selected by Carolus Linnaeus in 1742; Markham preferred Chinchona), wife of the new viceroy , who had just arrived from Europe, was taken ill with malaria at Lima . The countess was saved from death, and in thanksgiving caused large quantities of the bark to be collected. This she distributed to malaria sufferers, partly in person and partly through the Jesuits of St. Paul's College at Lima (pulvis comitissæ). She did not return to Europe and was not the first to bring the bark there or to spread its use through Spain and the rest of the continent, as stated by Markham. For the earliest transportation of the bark we must thank the Jesuit Barnabé de Cobo (1582-1657; the Cobæa plant), who rendered important services in the exploration of Mexico and Peru. In his capacity of procurator of the Peruvian province of his order, he brought the bark from Lima to Spain, and afterwards to Rome and other parts of Italy, in 1632. In the meanwhile its merits must have been ascertained both in Lima and in various parts of Europe, as Count Chinchon and his physician Juan de Vega brought it back with them in 1640.
It was not until 1817, however, that the active ingredient in Jesuit's bark -- quinine --was isolated by French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou.
The picture of cinchona bark being stripped from the tree is from the Buchler website.
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