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
Hugh Algernon Weddell des environs de Paris (1845). In 1843, he was invited to join the expedition of François Louis de la Porte, comte de Castelnau to South America, and he explored and collected botanical specimens on that continent for five years. In May 1845, Weddell left the expedition which was then in Paraguay, and proceeded on a solitary journey which would take him into Peru and Bolivia. Before leaving Paris, he had been particularly instructed by the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle to undertake a thorough investigation of the "Cinchona" plant, or "fever bark" tree in its native habitat. "Cinchona", the source of