A Short Discourse on Quinine
Posted by Lesley on September 03, 1998 at 01:45:48:
In response to Peruvian Bark, written by Caroline on September 02, 1998 at 12:59:10
Here is short excerpt from a post graduate paper that I wrote on medicinal plants concerning quinine:
The most famous plant drug from the New World has a long and fascinating history. Legend states that the Countess of Chinchon, Dona Francisca Henriquez de Rivera, was very ill with malaria. The Countess of Chinchon contracted the disease in Peru where her husband, Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, was viceroy from 1629 to 1639. Bleeding was the most common treatment for malaria because it was supposed to relieve the patient of the ill humor causing the disease. When this treatment failed, her physician, Juan del Vega, tried a local remedy called quina bark. The Countess recovered and the remedy became known as Countess's bark. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
In 1630, the Spanish found the quina tree on the eastern side of the Andes at elevations from three thousand to nine thousand feet where its habitat stretches from Columbia to Bolivia. Linnaeus named the genus Cinchona in honor of the Countess, even though he omitted the first h in her name. Cinchona is a large genus but only a few species are medically valuable. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
Until the discovery of quina bark, malaria was the one of the most lethal diseases known to man. It flourished mainly in warm, moist climates near swamps and marshes. Malaria is mainly associated with tropical countries but it thrived in Europe as well. Most people thought the disease resulted from the effluvia of the marshes. Consequently the name malaria comes from the Italian "mal aire" or "bad air." Although Alexander the Great was probably the most famous person to die of the disease, a severe outbreak of malaria could cause the death of an entire region. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
Malaria is caused by a protozoan species that was first identified in 1880 by Charles L. A. Laveran, a physician to the French colonial army in Algiers. There are several different species of Plasmodium, one of which causes chills and fever but is not fatal. The other species is so fatal that it will kill the sufferer in a few hours. In 1902, Sir Robert Ross, an English physician in India discovered that the disease was carried by mosquitos. Giovanni Battista Grassi, an Italian scientist, discovered that malaria was transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Plasmodium lives in the stomach of the mosquito which spreads the disease as she bites each successive person. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
In Europe, the quina bark was promoted by Cardinal de Lugo, the Procurator General of the Order of the Jesuits. The cardinal actively participated in the research for the proper dose of quina bark since he knew that malaria epidemics were common in the Campagna region of Italy, the plain surrounding Rome. At the Vatican, many of the Cardinals would die of the disease while choosing a new Pope. At first, most European physicians resisted the remedy because it was not promoted by the medical system. However, the remedy gained popularity and the order soon controlled the supply of quina bark to the West where it was known as Jesuit's bark for the next one hundred and fifty years. Catholic prejudice was so strong that many Protestants refused to use it. The Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell died of malaria because he refused to take a remedy endorsed by Rome. (Joyce 1994, Merewood 1990, Plotkin 1993, Taylor 1965)
In 1820, the French scientists, Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph-Bienaime Caventou isolated the active ingredient in quina bark, an alkaloid called quinine. By the 1850s, quinine was very scarce due to the great demand for the remedy in the tropical colonies of India, Africa, and the East Indies, as well as Europe. England sent Richard Spruce, a botanist-explorer, to Ecuador to collect the seeds of the quina tree. Spruce found the species Cinchona succirubra which turned out to be a poor source of quinine. The Netherlands sent the botanist J.C. Hasskarl who also returned with a species low in quinine. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
The breakthrough came when the English explorer and quina bark trader, Charles Ledger, collected the first medically valuable species for cultivation. He sent his native employee from their village near Lake Titicaca, Peru to collect seeds from Bolivia. Ledger sent the seeds to his brother, George, who offered them for sale. The English government refused to buy them after their experience with Spruce's seed. Ledger then offered the seeds to the Dutch in 1872, where they were cultivated in Java. The trees contained 10 to 20 percent quinine when 3 percent would have been adequate for treatment. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
The Dutch government named the superior species Cinchona ledgeriana. Growing this new species was a difficult undertaking as the seeds rapidly lost their viability and their seedlings were prone to damping off. They also had to be isolated from the established, inferior strain in order to prevent cross pollination. Nevertheless, these older trees proved to be quite valuable. They were used as grafting stock for the new species which did not produce good roots in cultivation. (Joyce 1994, Taylor 1965)
The new crop of Cinchona ledgeriana seeds was distributed to the Dutch planters who mainly grew coffee and tea on their Javanese plantations. The planters were reluctant to start quina cultivation because the trees took so long to mature before they could be harvested for the bark. However, the cultivation was a large success, establishing a Dutch monopoly on quinine until World War II. The Dutch government offered the seeds to other countries, but not one could successfully cultivate them. The Dutch monopoly was finally broken by the invention of DDT, which effectively controlled the mosquito population. In 1944, William E. Doering and Robert B. Woodward of Columbia University synthesized quinine. Although the analogue was too expensive to market at first, it eventually replaced natural quinine. (Joyce 1994, Plotkin 1993, Taylor 1965)
According to ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin, new strains of malaria have been recently discovered that are resistant to the synthetic analogue and only respond to natural quinine. Scientists at Walter Reed Hospital have found that a Chinese native (Artemesia annua), called qinghaosu, is a very effective remedy although it works by a completely different process than quinine. The Chinese have used qinghaosu to treat malaria for at least two thousand years. (Duke et al. 1985, Fahey 1991, Plotkin 1993)
Quinine was responsible for a popular alcoholic drink that originated as medicine the colonial era. The English plantation owners would take their daily dose of quinine in a tonic which they would mix with gin, hence, the gin and tonic. Gin itself began as a medical drink in the eighteenth century when juniper berries (Juniperus communis) were soaked in alcohol. Juniper berries were used to restore weak constitutions and preserve good health in Europe. The juniper genus is found on every continent where the berries and the root are used by native people as a diuretic, antiseptic, antibiotic, and general health tonic. Juniper is still used in modern herbal medicine to treat urinary infections, edema, gastric disorders, and rheumatism. (Ody 1993, Schar 1993)
- *Whew* Ken 07:49:39 9/03/98
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