ABSTRACT
Cinchona bark is one of the most important naturally occurring drugs in the medical pharmacopoeia. Although the circumstances surrounding cinchona’s discovery in Peru in the early part of the 17th century are clouded by unreliable sources, apocryphal ornament, and botanical confusion, there is little doubt that cinchona bark was the first specific treatment for malaria, or indeed for any other disease, in Western medicine. Given the wide geographic distribution of malaria, and the high rates of morbidity and mortality associated with the disease, it is probably no exaggeration to say that cinchona is the remedy that has spared, or at least ameliorated, the greatest number of lives in human history. Indeed, cinchona bark is one of the most enduring antimalarials ever discovered, and will probably continue to have benefits for the treatment of severe and drug-resistant malaria well into the 21st century.
