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Medicinal, culinary and unusual botanicals from Australia and around the world

Quinine Bark (Cinchona pubescens) 50g

$13.95

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Description

Cinchona has been historically sought after for its medicinal value, as the bark of several species yields quinine and other alkaloids that were the only effective treatments against malaria during the height of European colonialism, which made them of great economic and political importance. Carl Linnaeus named the genus in 1742 based on a claim that the plant had cured the wife of the Count of Chinchón, a Spanish viceroy in Lima, in the 1630s, though the veracity of this story has been refuted. The curative properties of cinchona were known much earlier. The history of the plants and the identification of the precise origins of their various extracts and medicinal uses are still disputed; though certain fever cures from South America known as Jesuit’s bark and Jesuit’s powder have been traced to Cinchona, there is also evidence of ingredients derived from other species such as Myroxylon.(Wikipedia)

The bark of trees in this genus is the source of a variety of alkaloids, the most familiar of which is quinine, an antipyretic (antifever) agent especially useful in treating malaria. For a while the extraction of a mixture of alkaloids from the cinchona bark, known in India as the cinchona febrifuge, was used. The alkaloid mixture or its sulphated form mixed in alcohol and sold as quinetum was however very bitter and caused nausea, among other side effects.

50g Quinine Bark (Cinchona pubescens)

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