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
History of pharmacy in the United States number of programs in the history of medicine, history of pharmacy programs remain few in number in the United States. As soon as Columbus started his explorations of the Americas in the late 15th century, a European effort to find valuable medicinal plants among the flora of the New World to add to the medical canon got underway. Early New World medicines uncovered included guaiacum from the West Indies (for coughs, rheumatism and a wide variety of other uses), sassafras from Florida, copaiba from Brazil, Peru balsam and, most famously, cinchona bark from Peru, also called "Jesuit's bark" in honor