Cinchona
Jesuits’ bark, Peruvian bark
- Known today as
- The bark of Cinchona trees of the Andes.
- Kind
- Plant, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- quinine, quinidine, cinchonine
- Earliest authority here
- The Jesuits
Revised October 1, 2026: Lore added from texts read in full. The mechanism extended from ChEMBL's curated records. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Cinchona: what was it used for?
Against the tertian and quartan agues, which it cured as nothing had before.
Cinchona: what does modern science say?
Quinine, isolated from it by Pelletier and Caventou in 1820, was for three centuries the chief remedy for malaria.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Quinine poisons the malaria parasite in the red cell, and quinidine blocks the sodium channels of the heart; in overdose it causes cinchonism, with ringing ears, blindness, and arrhythmia.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- Toxic dose
- About 2–8 g of quinine; the tonic water of today holds a tenth of the old dose per glass.
- Standing
- Quinine is on the WHO list of essential medicines for severe malaria, after artemisinin.
- Achan, J., et al. (2011). “Quinine, an old anti-malarial drug.” Malaria Journal 10. Verified against its record · doi:10.1186/1475-2875-10-144
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Cinchona: what lore surrounds it?
Folkard tells the discovery legend: “Some Cinchona-trees being thrown by the winds into a pool, lay there until the water became so bitter that everyone refused to drink it, till one of the inhabitants of the district being seized with violent fever, and finding no water wherewith to quench his thirst, was forced to drink of this, by which means he became perfectly cured.” The bark came to Europe “through the medium of Ana de Osorio, Countess Cinchon, and Vice-Queen of Peru, after whom the powdered bark was called ‘Countess's Powder.’”
Cinchona: what did the older authorities say?
- The Jesuits
- Brought the bark from Peru to Europe in the 1630s, whence its name, and its Protestant enemies’ suspicion of it.
- Linnaeus
- Named the genus for the Countess of Chinchón, said, probably falsely, to have been cured by it in Lima.
Sources
- Pelletier, P. J., & Caventou, J. B. (1820). Recherches chimiques sur les quinquinas. Book, not indexed
- Folkard, R. (1884). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics, “Cinchona.” Project Gutenberg #44638. Primary text
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 3 cited: 1 verified against its record, 1 primary text, 1 book, not indexed. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Cinchona.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cinchona.
- MLA
“Cinchona.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cinchona. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Cinchona. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cinchona
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See Also
Also in Carl Linnaeus
Deadly nightshade in Carl Linnaeus · Fly agaric in Carl Linnaeus · everything Carl Linnaeus names →
Drawing on the same sources: Folkard
Cinquefoil · Cassia, flower of · Coriander · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
Cinnabar (Mercury sulfide) · Chrism (Olive oil mixed with balsam and consecrated by a bishop) · Cinnamon (The bark of Cinnamomum verum) · Chokecherry (the chokecherry of North America) · Chocolate · Citron (the large thick-rinded ancestor of the lemon) · Chicory (Cichorium intybus)
Historical description, not medical advice.