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Cinchona Shrubs Beautiful: Norman Taylor, director of the cinchona shrubs beautiful Products Institute, in an article published in the Scientific Monthly for July 1943, writes: "After the fall of Java in March 1942, the United States government laid down rules for a wise and far-reaching policy on this subject. (1) The use of quinine was limited to malaria. (2) A substitute —totaquina (i.e., total alkaloids of the cinchona shrubs beautiful bark) was manufactured. (3) All importations of cinchona shrubs beautiful bark from tropical America were controlled by the government, and all prices were fixed,"
A brief description of the manufacture of quinine and a few of its chemical characteristics follow. The cinchona shrubs beautiful shrubs are beautiful plants, with long, pointed leaves and pink and white flowers. The highest percentage of quinine occurs in the parenchyma of the bark. This bark is harvested and dried by either of two methods: air or sun drying, or kiln drying. The process of manufacture differs with commercial companies but consists basically of pulverizing the bark, mixing it with lime which combines with the tannates and acids to free the alkaloids. By using oil as a solvent, which itself is treated with dilute sulphuric acid, and filtering through animal charcoal, the end product becomes a crude quinine sulphide.
Who then did introduce quinine into Europe? The general opinion is that the Jesuits were the first to introduce the cinchona shrubs beautiful bark into Europe, some authors claiming that it was sold in England under the name "Jesuits' powder" in 1641. A. W. Hoggis concludes, "The earliest mention in European literature of the use of cinchona shrubs beautiful occurs in Belgium in Herman van der Heyden's work in 1643. However, throughout the 17th century a vast trade was done by merchants introducing to Europe medicinal substances from the New World, and it is unlikely that cinchona shrubs beautiful, once its qualities were known in Lima, had to wait long for its introduction to Europe. This event took place somewhere around 1633." |
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