Quinine side effects include deafness, low blood platelets, and an irregular heartbeat. Use can make one more prone to sunburn. While it is unclear if use during pregnancy causes harm to the baby, use to treat malaria during pregnancy is still recommended. Quinine is an alkaloid, a naturally occurring chemical compound. How it works as a medicine is not entirely clear. Quinine was first isolated in 1820 from the bark of a cinchona tree. Bark extracts have been used to treat malaria since at least 1632. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and
Jesuit's bark in the Jesuit College at Rome, who undoubtedly deserves the greatest credit after de Lugo for distributing the genuine unadulterated article, and to whom are attributed the Roman directions for its use "Schedula Romana", the earliest dating at least from 1651. In his friend Honoré Fabri, a French Jesuit, who stayed for a time in Rome, de Lugo won a determined defender of the bark against the first anticinchona pamphlet written by the Brussels doctor Jean-Jacques Chifflet. Under the pseudonym of Antimus Conygius, Fabri wrote in 1655 the first paper on cinchona published in Italy, as well as the first