Quinine London. It remained the antimalarial drug of choice until the 1940s, when other drugs took over. The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. In 1820, French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou first isolated quinine from the bark of a tree in the genus "Cinchona" - probably "Cinchona officinalis" - and subsequently named the substance. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, "quina" or "quina-quina", which means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". Prior to 1820, the bark
Schedula Romana treatment for malaria was found in the forests of the Andes in Peru. A such called fever tree, whose bark, made into powder and given as a beverage, cured the fevers and was known to have produced miraculous results in the local population. The bark was obtained from several species of the genus "Cinchona", of the Rubiaceae family. Popularized in Europe through the work of jesuits in America, the cinchona tree bark came to be known as Jesuit's bark. Perhaps the most prominent popularizer of the Jesuit's bark was a Spanish Jesuit Cardinal, Juan de Lugo. In 1643, Cardinal Lugo