Cerebral malaria and the story of Quinine and the Fever Trees

Abstract

Cinchona bark was first recorded as a cure for malaria by the Spanish in Peru around 1630. A Spanish missionary allegedly learned of the treatment from the Indian natives. Cerebral malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum is life threatening and one of the commonest encephalopathies in the world. Quinine was the first effective treatment, discovered in the bark of quina-quina, cinchona, ‘the fever tree’ in Peru in 1633. Many tales – many fanciful – relate to its early use. Foremost of the discoverers in 1735 was a group of French scientists in an expedition to Peru directed by the Parisian Academie Royale des Sciences. It was then widely exported and employed in Spain, Italy and Britain to become the standard treatment.