What is Quinine?
Quinine is a substance which is obtained by processing the bark of the cinchona tree, a South American native which has been used as a febrifuge by Native Americans for centuries. Quinine has historically been used to treat malaria, along with some other medical conditions, and although a number of antimalarial drugs are on the market today, quinine is still used in some regions. It is also used commercially as an additive to tonic water, a soft drink which is used as a mixer for other drinks in addition to being consumed straight.
Europeans were introduced to quinine in the 1600s, when Jesuit missionaries first brought the “miracle bark” to Europe from their South American missions. When Europeans began using the drug to treat the fevers associated with malaria, they discovered that it was highly effective against certain strains, and Jesuit missions soon began raking in money from their quinine-extracting operations. Through the 1930s, quinine was the only drug effective against malaria, until an assortment of antimalarials were developed to combat the disease.
In pure form, quinine is a white to colorless crystalline powder with a sharply bitter taste. The bitterness of quinine is famous; it's what gives tonic water its classic bitter flavor, and it was the bane of many residents of the tropics, where quinine was taken as a prophylactic to prevent malaria infection. Tonic water was in fact originally developed as a prophylactic antimalarial drug, and many people developed things like gin and tonics to make the tonic more palatable.
Modern tonic water does not usually contain enough quinine to be useful as a prophylactic against malaria, although it retains the bitter flavor. Quinine for the treatment and prevention of malaria can be purchased in the form of tablets and liquid medications. The drug is also used to treat muscle cramps and fever, and it has historically been used to hasten uterine contractions during childbirth. For this reason, pregnant women should not use quinine.
Quinine has a distinct advantage over other antimalarials: although it is expensive and time consuming to produce, the parasites which cause malaria appear to be slow to develop a resistance to quinine. As a result, the drug is sometimes used to treat drug resistant malaria, in lieu of medications which may fail to work. Although quinine has been synthesized historically, researchers have yet to perfect an efficient and accurate synthesis process for the drug, so, for now, it continues to be produced in the traditional way, from cinchona bark.
Written by S.E. Smith
