What is quinine?
Modern medical science is busy seeking and even creating new chemicals to treat diseases and the list of so called wonder drugs grows longer every year, But the past also had its miracle medicines. In the 17th century, the Spanish in Peru learned that quinine can be used to treat the world wide, age old scourge of malaria. But the Spanish were not the original discoverers of this wonder drug.
Since the dawn of history, travelers and dwellers in the tropics have fallen prey to malaria, a strange illness which comes and goes with attacks of shivering cold and raging fever. In the 1600s, one noteworthy victim was the Countess Chinchon, widow of the Spanish Viceroy in Peru. When all known remedies failed, the lady was given a bitter medicine brewed by the Quechua Indians. She recovered and the news of the wonder drug for treating malaria spread around the world. The magic medicine was quinine.
The watery, bitter tasting medicine was brewed from the bark of a native Brazilian tree, since named the chinchona tree in honor of the ailing countess. Its dainty foliage is somewhat like the leaves of the ash tree and in spring time its boughs are decked with clusters of starry blossoms. In the 17th century, the Bra23.lian trees were stripped of their bark to supply quinine for malaria victims around the world.
No new trees were planted to replace the stripped chinchonas of Brazil. But the Dutch had taken cuttings of the trees to the East Indies. There they thrived and most of the world's supply of quinine now comes from Java and plantations in other parts of the East Indies.
The story of quinine is wrapped up in the romantic tale of the Indians who farmed the slopes of Andes mountains.
It was used by the Inca medicine men and rm y have been used by the ancestors of the Incas and perhaps even by their most remote ancestors. Quinine may have been one of the first wonder drugs.
The Quechua medicine man was called the remedy keeper. He used magic tricks to inspire faith in his patients, but he was a skilled surgeon and knew the value of many drugs. With good fortune, the remedy keeper could become rich, but if a patient died he might be executed as a murderer.
The remedy keeper used the drugs belladonna and cocaine. He dispensed the laxative we call ipecac and used snuff for treating head colds. He treated malaria with quinine and used the juice from a water weed to soothe the eyes. Some of his drugs were valuable medicines, some were useless and some were downright harmful to his patients.