General
- Shrubs or small,
medium-sized to tall canopy trees; raphides absent; axillary thorns
absent. Stipules interpetiolar, free at base or interpetiolar, connate
at base, broadly triangular, obovate, oblong or ligulate, subcaducous or
readily caducous. Leaves opposite, long- to short-petiolate;
blades ovate, elliptic, obovate, broadly obovate, oblong, orbicular,
chartaceous, stiffly chartaceous, papyraceous, thinly to thickly
coriaceous; foliar pellucid glands absent; domatia sparse tufts or dense
tufts of hair or absent. Inflorescence terminal, frondose or not
frondose, paniculate, densely or sparsely branched.
- Cinchona is a
bitter stomachic and has astringent properties. It may sometimes cause
vomiting and if taken over long periods may give rise to symptoms of
cinchonism. To keep the alkaloids in solution, liquid preparations of
cinchona are usually given in acid media but the decoction and the
tinctures are prescribed with ammonium bicarbonate and in these cases
Mucilage of Acacia should be added to suspend the alkaloids.
Medical
Effects
- Quinine is a drug
which is made from the bark of the Cinchona tree. A number of various
other chemicals can also be synthesized from Cinchona, and these include
cinchonine, cinchonidine and quinidine.
- Cinchona bark was
prepared by grinding it down to a fine powder, and mixing it with water
or wine. Currently however, quinine is generally taken in tablet form,
but it can also be taken intravenously by injection. Nowadays, quinine
is rarely employed for the treatment of malaria, except for a severe
acute form known as falciparum malaria. It is however, commonly taken to
relieve night-time leg cramps.
Market
- American
sources of cinchona trees and quinine bark were once again in demand,
but new plantations were planted by the Allies in Africa as well. This
dire shortage of quinine fueled research for developing and producing a
synthetic version of the quinine alkaloid rather than relying on the
natural bark
- Their
natural resources were smuggled out and profitable world markets were
created from them. They were poor, developing nations without
multinational backing or investment capital - and ended up at the bottom
of the heap while competing in a global market for resources indigenous
to their countries.
Uses
- Quinine has been
so useful that the destruction of the cinchona tree has led to
rainforest devastation and ironically, global warming (the earth’s
fever!). This has forced the mosquitoes to travel north, spreading
malaria to North America. Pure quinine once again cures this, but like
all medicines, it is becoming less and less effective. To date, it is
only known to lower the fever and relieve some of the pressure felt
because of the disease. Synthetic quinine as medicine is the only way to
stop this raging cycle and actually end malaria.
-
Quinine is the main ingredient in tonic water, which is used to mix many
different alcoholic drinks. It is the flavor that gives tonic water that
bitter taste. About half of the total amount of harvested quinine from
the cinchona bark is used towards tonic water and quinine water. Because
quinine is so bitter, tonic water contains somewhere between 100 to 300
parts per million quinine, or a maximum concentration of 70 mg of
quinine per liter of tonic water.
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