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
Therapeutice Specialis ad Febres Periodicas Perniciosas who first systematically studied the effect of cinchona in the treatment of malaria, wrote a book which he titled "Therapeutice Specialis ad Febres Periodicas Perniciosas". One highlight of the "Therapeutice Specialis" is the drawing "tree of fevers", where different fevers, such as branches of the tree, are divided into categories: on the left, those that respond to cinchona, are shown as branches covered with bark, while on the right are those for which cinchona is ineffective, and are depicted as denuded leafless branches. Torti clearly identified cinchona as a specific therapy for intermittent fevers, as opposed to continued fevers, which