There can be no doubt that a very strong prejudice was raised against it, which it took many years to conquer; and the controversies which arose on the subject between learned doctors were long and acrimonious. Dr. Colmenero, a professor of the University of Salamanca, wrote a work in which he declared that ninety sudden deaths had been caused by its use in Madrid alone.[16] Chiflet (Paris, 1653) and Plempius (Rome, 1656), two great enemies of novelty, prophesied the early death of quinquina, and its inevitable malediction by future ages; while the more enlightened Badius (Genoa, 1656) defended its use, and quoted more than twelve thousand cures by the aid of this remedy, performed by the best doctors of the hospitals in Italy. In 1692 Dr. Morton, one of the opponents of its use, was obliged to retract all he had said against quinquina; and it was then that it began to be generally admitted as a valuable medicine. It still, however, remained a subject of controversy, and as late as 1714 two Italian physicians, Ramazzini and Torti,[17] held opposite views on the subject. Ramazzini wrote against its use with much violence, while Torti maintained that, in proper doses, it would arrest remittent and intermittent fevers.[18] Whilst the inestimable value of Peruvian bark was gradually forcing conviction on the most bigoted medical conservatives of Europe, and whilst the number and efficacy of cures effected by its means were bringing it into general use, and consequently increasing the demand, it was long before any knowledge was obtained of the tree from which it was taken. In 1726 La Fontaine, at the solicitation of the Duchess of Bouillon, who had been cured of a dangerous fever by taking Peruvian bark, composed a poem in two cantos to celebrate its virtues; but the exquisite beauty of the leaves, and the delicious fragrance of the flowers of the quinquina-tree, with allusions to which he might have adorned his poem, were still unknown in Europe.