to their old prejudices with not less firmness when these and their interests ran on parallel lines.
Fevers were at that time regarded as caused by some morbific principle in the humours which occasioned effervescence, and which it was essential first of all to expel. The patient was, therefore, treated with evacuants and debilitating medicines while the fever continued, and the vital spirits were afterwards restored by a course of cordials and bitters, such as wormwood, chamomile flowers, mace, carduus benedictus, angelica, and valerian. The opponents of the bark insisted that if it palliated the fever it "fixed the humour" and ensured a relapse or some other more dangerous disease. In 1652 Leopold William, Archduke of Austria, and Governor of the Low Countries, who had interested himself in popularising the bark, fell ill with a quaternian fever. He took bark and recovered. A relapse occurred, but the complaint again yielded to the remedy. Some time after he had another attack. This time, perhaps influenced by the views already quoted, he refused to take bark and died. This event was regarded, illogically enough, as evidence of the dangerous character of the medicine.
Meanwhile, the Jesuits had been busy propagating the new remedy and proving its virtues. The provincial father brought a large supply to Rome, and explained the method of using it to a congress of Jesuits then assembled in that city. The fathers administered it all over Europe, giving it gratuitously to the poor and to their own order, but charging its weight in gold to the rich. It is said that they endeavoured to keep it as a secret medicine, and would only supply it in powder so that it might be more difficult to identify. The Procurator-General of the order, Father (afterwards Cardinal)
