Quinine the Quechua, who are indigenous to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, to halt shivering due to low temperatures. The Quechuas would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. The Jesuits were the first to bring cinchona to Europe. The Spanish were aware of the medicinal properties of cinchona bark by the 1570s or earlier: Nicolás Monardes (1571) and Juan Fragoso (1572) both described a tree that was subsequently identified as the cinchona tree and whose bark was used to produce a drink to treat diarrhea. Quinine has been
Cinchona people. Italian sources spelt Quina as Cina which was a source of confusion with "Smilax" from China. Haggis argued that Qina and Jesuit's bark actually referred to "Myroxylon peruiferum" or Peruvian balsam and that this was an item of importance in Spanish trade in the 1500s. Over time, the bark of the "Myroxylon" was adulterated with the similar looking bark of what we now know as "Cinchona". Gradually the adulterant became the main product that was the key therapeutic ingredient used in malarial therapy. The bark was included as "Cortex Peruanus" in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1677. The "fever tree"