Cinchona another fever remedy. The bark of cinchona can be harvested in a number of ways. One approach was to cut the tree but this and girdling are equally destructive and unsustainable so small strips were cut and various techniques such as "mossing", the application of moss to the cut areas, were used to allow the tree to heal. Other approaches involved coppicing and chopping of side branches which were then stripped of bark. The bark was dried into what were called quills and then powdered for medicinal uses. The bark contains alkaloids, including quinine and quinidine. Cinchona is the only
Alexander von Humboldt a center of learning in the U.S., Humboldt met with some of the major scientific figures of the era, including chemist and anatomist Caspar Wistar, who pushed for compulsory smallpox vaccination, and botanist Benjamin Smith Barton, as well as physician Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who wished to hear about cinchona bark from a South American tree, which cured fevers. Humboldt later published a treatise in English on cinchona. After arriving in Washington D.C, Humboldt held numerous intense discussions with Jefferson on both scientific matters and also his year-long stay in New Spain. Jefferson had only