The Amputation - Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827)
Though there is some confusion over how cinchona bark first entered Europe what is clear is that the Jesuit missionaries were aware of its potential from a very early stage. According to the online Catholic Encyclopaedia they had “learned the healing power of the bark from natives during the years 1620-1630” and, according to Poser and Bruyn, it was being used in Jesuit colleges in Genoa, Lyon, Louvain and Ratisbon from 1650. According to Poser and Bruyn in their An illustrated history of malaria, however, this story has, in recent years, been almost completely rejected owing to the research of Jospeh Rompel, Rubem Vargas Ugarte, Alec Haggis and Jaime Jaramillo-Arango. Clements Robert Markham, leader of the British expedition to South America, in 1860, was a great proponent of trying to re-establish the name “chinchona” which he believed to be correct. The more usual spelling ‘cinchona’, without the initial 'h' being the result of an early error. After contracting “an attack of fever” whilst visiting Peru in 1630, the Countess is alleged to have been cured by the cinchona bark. (From Howard's Nueva Quinologia de Pavon) in Markam's Peruvian Bark European DiscoveryĬinchona is believed to derive its name from the Countess of Chinchon, wife of a Spanish Viceroy of Peru. Owen in his Cinchona planter’s manual, fallen “into unmerited neglect". As a result of the popularity of quinine, however, these have, according to T.C. All the alkaloids, with the exception of sulphate of cinchonine, are known for their febrifugal properties.
By far the most valuable of these is quinine, a drug used to treat malaria, which according to a report of the Commissions of Medical Officers of the Government in India, possesses “more than any other that can be named, the confidence of medical practitioners ”. It produces a number of alkaloids, namely cinchonine, cinchonidine, quinine, quinidine and quinamine. Its bark, also known as Peruvian Bark or Jesuit’s Bark, is renowned for its medicinal properties. In the 19th century it could be found along the west coast from Venezuela in the north to Bolivia in the south. The cinchona - a large shrub or small tree - is indigenous to South America.
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