Cinchona ledgeriana" had a yield of 8 to 13 percent quinine in bark grown in Dutch Indonesia which effectively out-competed the British Indian production. It was only later that the English saw the value and sought to obtain the seeds of "C. ledgeriana" from the Dutch. During World War II, the Japanese conquered Java and the United States lost access to the cinchona plantations that supplied war-critical quinine medication. Botanical expeditions – called Cinchona Missions – were launched in 1942-1944 to explore promising areas of South America in an effort to locate cinchona species that contained quinine and could be harvested
History of malaria shivering from cold, it was nevertheless effective for malaria. The use of the “fever tree” bark was introduced into European medicine by Jesuit missionaries (Jesuit's bark). Jesuit Bernabé de Cobo (1582–1657), who explored Mexico and Peru, is credited with taking cinchona bark to Europe. He brought the bark from Lima to Spain, and then to Rome and other parts of Italy, in 1632. Francesco Torti wrote in 1712 that only “intermittent fever” was amenable to the fever tree bark. This work finally established the specific nature of cinchona bark and brought about its general use in medicine. It would be