Cinchona
Cinchona | |
---|---|
C. pubescens | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Asterids |
Order: | Gentianales |
Family: | Rubiaceae |
Subfamily: | Cinchonoideae |
Tribe: | Cinchoneae |
Genus: | Cinchona L. |
Type species | |
Cinchona officinalis | |
Species | |
around 38 species; see § Species |
Cinchona (pronounced
Cinchona has been historically sought after for its medicinal value, as the bark of several species yields
The artificial synthesis of quinine in 1944, an increase in resistant forms of malaria, and the emergence of alternate therapies eventually ended large-scale economic interest in Cinchona cultivation. Cinchona alkaloids show promise in treating Plasmodium falciparum malaria, which has evolved resistance to synthetic drugs. Cinchona plants continue to be revered for their historical legacy; the national tree of Peru is in the genus Cinchona.[3]
Etymology and common names
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 disputed. Linnaeus used the Italian spelling Cinchona, but the name Chinchón (pronounced [tʃinˈtʃon] in Spanish) led to Clements Markham and others proposing a correction of the spelling to Chinchona, and some prefer the pronunciation /tʃɪnˈtʃoʊnə/ for the common name of the plant. Traditional medicine uses from South America known as Jesuit's bark and Jesuit's powder have been traced to Cinchona.[citation needed]
Description
Cinchona plants belong to the family Rubiaceae and are large shrubs or small trees with evergreen foliage, growing 5 to 15 m (16 to 49 ft) in height. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate, and 10–40 cm long. The flowers are white, pink, or red, and produced in terminal panicles. The fruit is a small capsule containing numerous seeds. A key character of the genus is that the flowers have marginally hairy corolla lobes. The tribe Cinchoneae includes the genera Cinchonopsis, Jossia, Ladenbergia, Remijia, Stilpnophyllum, and Ciliosemina.[4] In South America, natural populations of Cinchona species have geographically distinct distributions. During the 19th century, the introduction of several species into cultivation in the same areas of India and Java, by the English and Dutch East India Company, respectively, led to the formation of hybrids.[5]
Linnaeus described the genus based on the species Cinchona officinalis, which is found only in a small region of Ecuador and is of little medicinal significance.[6][7] Nearly 300 species were later described and named in the genus, but a revision of the genus in 1998 identified only 23 distinct species.[5][8]
History
Early references
The
The traditional story connecting Cinchona species with malaria treatment was first recorded by Italian physician
Quina bark was mentioned by Fray Antonio de La Calancha in 1638 as coming from a tree in Loja (Loxa). He noted that bark powder weighing about two coins was cast into water and drunk to cure fevers and "tertians". Jesuit Father Bernabé Cobo (1582–1657) also wrote on the "fever tree" in 1653. The legend was popularized in English literature by Markham, and in 1874, he also published a "plea for the correct spelling of the genus Chinchona".[12][13] Spanish physician and botanist Nicolás Monardes wrote of a New World bark powder used in Spain in 1574, and another physician, Juan Fragoso, wrote of bark powder from an unknown tree in 1600 that was used for treating various ills. Both identify the sources as trees that do not bear fruit and have heart-shaped leaves; they were suggested to have been referring to Cinchona species.[14]
The name quina-quina or quinquina was suggested as an old name for Cinchona used in Europe and based on the native name used by the Quechua people. Italian sources spelt quina as "cina", which was a source of confusion with Smilax from China.[15] Haggis argued that qina and Jesuit's bark actually referred to Myroxylon peruiferum, or Peruvian balsam, and that this was an item of importance in Spanish trade in the 1500s. Over time, the bark of Myroxylon may have been adulterated with the similar-looking bark of what is now known as Cinchona.[16] Gradually, the adulterant became the main product that was the key therapeutic ingredient used in malarial therapy. The bark was included as Cortex Peruanus in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1677.
Economic significance
The "fever tree" was finally described carefully by astronomer
The colonial European powers eventually considered growing the plant in other parts of the tropics. The French mission of 1743, of which de la Condamine was a member, lost their cinchona plants when a wave took them off their ship. The
In the meantime, Charles Ledger and his native assistant Manuel Incra Mamani collected another species from Bolivia. Mamani was caught and beaten by Bolivian officials, leading to his death, but Ledger obtained seeds of high quality. These seeds were offered to the British, who were uninterested, leading to the rest being sold to the Dutch. The Dutch saw their value and multiplied the stock. The species later named Cinchona ledgeriana[21] yielded 8 to 13% quinine in bark grown in Dutch Indonesia, which effectively outcompeted the British Indian production. Only later did the English see the value and sought to obtain the seeds of C. ledgeriana from the Dutch.[22][23]
Francesco Torti used the response of fevers to treatment with Cinchona as a system of classification of fevers or a means for diagnosis. Its use in the effective treatment of malaria brought an end to treatment by bloodletting and long-held ideas of humorism from Galen.[24] Clements Markham was knighted for his role in establishing Cinchona species in Indonesia. Hasskarl was knighted with the Dutch order of the Lion.[25]
Ecology
Cinchona species are used as food plants by the larvae of some lepidopteran species, including the engrailed, the commander, and members of the genus Endoclita, including E. damor, E. purpurescens, and E. sericeus.
Traditional medicine
Whether cinchona bark was used in any traditional medicines within Andean Indigenous groups when it first came to notice by Europeans is unclear.
Europe
Italian botanist Pietro Castelli wrote a pamphlet noteworthy as being the first Italian publication to mention the Cinchona species. By the 1630s (or 1640s, depending on the reference), the bark was being exported to Europe. In the late 1640s, the method of use of the bark was noted in the Schedula Romana. The Royal Society of London published in its first year (1666) "An account of Dr. Sydenham's book, entitled, Methodus curandi febres . . ."[30]
English King Charles II called upon Robert Talbor, who had become famous for his miraculous malaria cure.[31] Because at that time the bark was in religious controversy, Talbor gave the king the bitter bark decoction in great secrecy. The treatment gave the king complete relief from the malaria fever. In return, Talbor was offered membership of the prestigious Royal College of Physicians.[32]
In 1679, Talbor was called by the King of France, Louis XIV, whose son was suffering from malarial fever. After a successful treatment, Talbor was rewarded by the king with 3,000 gold crowns and a lifetime pension for this prescription. Talbor was asked to keep the entire episode secret. After Talbor's death, the French king published this formula: seven grams of rose leaves, two ounces of lemon juice and a strong decoction of the cinchona bark served with wine. Wine was used because some alkaloids of the cinchona bark are not soluble in water, but are soluble in the ethanol in wine.[32] In 1681 Água de Inglaterra was introduced into Portugal from England by Dr. Fernando Mendes who, similarly, "received a handsome gift from (King Pedro) on condition that he should reveal to him the secret of its composition and withhold it from the public".[33]
In 1738, Sur l'arbre du quinquina, a paper written by
Homeopathy
The birth of homeopathy was based on cinchona bark testing. The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, when translating William Cullen's Materia medica, noticed Cullen had written that Peruvian bark was known to cure intermittent fevers.[35] Hahnemann took daily a large, rather than homeopathic, dose of Peruvian bark. After two weeks, he said he felt malaria-like symptoms. This idea of "like cures like" was the starting point of his writings on homeopathy. Hahnemann's symptoms have been suggested by researchers, both homeopaths and skeptics, as being an indicator of his hypersensitivity to quinine.[36]
Widespread cultivation
The bark was very valuable to Europeans in expanding their access to and exploitation of resources in distant colonies and at home. Bark gathering was often environmentally destructive, destroying huge expanses of trees for their bark, with difficult conditions for low wages that did not allow the indigenous bark gatherers to settle debts even upon death.[37]
Further exploration of the
... this bark was first gathered in quantities in 1849, though known for many years. The best quality is not quite equal to that of Yungas, but only second to it. There are four other classes of inferior bark, for some of which the bank pays fifteen dollars per quintal. The best, by law, is worth fifty-four dollars. The freight to Arica is seventeen dollars the mule load of three quintals. Six thousand quintals of bark have already been gathered from Yuracares. The bank was established in the year 1851.
Mr. [Thaddäus] Haenkementioned the existence of cinchona bark on his visit to Yuracares in 1796
- — Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, by Lieut.
Lardner Gibbon, USN. Vol. II, Ch. 6, pp. 146–47.
It was estimated that the British Empire incurred direct losses of 52 to 62 million pounds a year due to malaria sickness each year. It was therefore of great importance to secure the supply of the cure.
In 1865, "New Virginia" and "Carlota Colony" were established in Mexico by Matthew Fontaine Maury, a former Confederate in the American Civil War. Postwar Confederates were enticed there by Maury, now the "Imperial Commissioner of Immigration" for Emperor Maximillian of Mexico, and Archduke of Habsburg. All that survives of those two colonies are the flourishing groves of cinchonas established by Maury using seeds purchased from England. These seeds were the first to be introduced into Mexico.[44]
The cultivation of cinchona led from the 1890s to a decline in the price of quinine, but the quality and production of raw bark by the Dutch in Indonesia led them to dominate world markets. The producers of processed drugs in Europe (especially Germany[45]), however, bargained and caused fluctuations in prices, which led to a Dutch-led Cinchona Agreement in 1913 that ensured a fixed price for producers. A Kina Bureau in Amsterdam regulated this trade.[46]
During World War II, the Japanese conquered Java and the United States lost access to the cinchona plantations that supplied war-critical quinine medication. Botanical expeditions called Cinchona Missions[47] were launched between 1942 and 1944 to explore promising areas of South America in an effort to locate cinchona species that contained quinine and could be harvested for quinine production.[47] As well as being ultimately successful in their primary aim, these expeditions also identified new species of plants[47] and created a new chapter in international relations between the United States and other nations in the Americas.[48]
Chemistry
Cinchona alkaloids
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.[49][50] 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.[51]
Cinchona alkaloids include:
- )
- methoxy)
- dihydroquinine and dihydroquinidine (stereoisomers with R1 = ethyl, R2 = methoxy)
They find use in
Other chemicals
Alongside the alkaloids, many cinchona barks contain cinchotannic acid, a particular tannin, which by oxidation rapidly yields a dark-coloured phlobaphene[52] called red cinchonic,[53] cinchono-fulvic acid, or cinchona red.[54]
In 1934, efforts to make malaria drugs cheap and effective for use across countries led to the development of a standard called "totaquina" proposed by the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations. Totaquina required a minimum of 70% crystallizable alkaloids, of which at least 15% was to be quinine with not more than 20% amorphous alkaloids.[55][56]
Species
There are at least 24 species of Cinchona recognized by botanists.[5][57] There are likely several unnamed species and many intermediate forms that have arisen due to the plants' tendency to hybridize.[8]
- Cinchona anderssonii Maldonado
- Cinchona antioquiae L.Andersson
- Cinchona asperifolia Wedd.
- Cinchona barbacoensis H.Karst.
- Cinchona calisaya Wedd. [a]
- Cinchona capuli L.Andersson
- Cinchona fruticosa L.Andersson
- Cinchona glandulifera Ruiz & Pav.
- Cinchona hirsuta Ruiz & Pav.
- Cinchona krauseana L.Andersson
- Cinchona lancifolia Mutis
- Cinchona lucumifolia Pav. ex Lindl.
- Cinchona macrocalyx Pav. ex DC.
- Cinchona micrantha Ruiz & Pav.
- Cinchona mutisii Lamb.
- Cinchona nitida Ruiz & Pav.
- Cinchona officinalis L.
- Cinchona parabolica Pav. in J.E.Howard
- Cinchona pitayensis (Wedd.) Wedd.
- Cinchona pubescens Vahl
- Cinchona pyrifolia L.Andersson
- Cinchona rugosa Pav. in J.E.Howard
- Cinchona scrobiculata Humb. & Bonpl.
- Cinchona villosa Pav. ex Lindl.
See also
Notes
- C.F. Pahud.
- ^ "Cinchona (two pronunciations)". Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
- ^ "fever tree". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ISBN 978-1429122511. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
- JSTOR 25065412.
- ^ a b c Andersson, Lennart (1998). "A revision of the genus Cinchona (Rubiaceae-Cinchoneae)". Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden. 80: 1–75.
- ^ Linné, Carolus von. Genera Plantarum 2nd edition 1743. page 413
- ^ Linné, Carolus von. Species Plantarum. 1st edition. 1752. volume 1. page 172.[1]
- ^ a b Cinchona. Selected Rubiaceae Tribes and Genera. Tropicos. Missouri Botanical Garden.
- ^ S2CID 10411353.
- ^ Bado, Sebastiano (1663). Anastasis corticis Peruviae, seu Chinae Chinae defensio, Sebastiani Badi Genuensis [...] Contra Ventilationes Ioannis Iacobi Chifletii, gemitusque Vopisci Fortunati Plempii. Genoa: Petrus Joannes Calenzani.
- S2CID 24261782.
- ^ Markham, Clements (1874). A memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio Countess of Chinchon and Vice-queen of Peru. London: Trubner & Co.
- ^ Markham, Clements (1880). Peruvian bark. A popular account of the introduction of Chinchona cultivation into British India. 1800-1880. London: John Murray.
- .
- .
- ^ Haggis, A.W. (1941). "Fundamental errors in the early history of Cinchona". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 10 (3–4): 417–459, 568–592.
- ^ King, George (1880). A manual of Cinchona cultivation in India (2 ed.). Calcutta: Government Press. pp. 1–2.
- JSTOR 219686.
- .
- ^ Rice, Benjamin Lewis (1897). Mysore: A Gazetteer Compiled for Government Vol. 1. Westminster: A Constable. p. 892.
- .
- PMID 19312337.
- ^ JSTOR 1792039.
- ^ Jarcho, Saul (1993). Quinine's predecessor: Francesco Torti and the early history of cinchona. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- .
- S2CID 32394835.
- ISBN 9780128008744.
- ^ Guidelines for the treatment of malaria (PDF) (2 ed.). World Health Organization. 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2014.
- PMID 21609473.
- ^ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,1, 1210–1213 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstl.1665.0092
- ^ See:
- Paul Reiter (2000) "From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age," Emerging Infectious Diseases, 6 (1) : 1-11. Available on-line at: National Center for Biotechnology Information.
- Robert Talbor (1672) Pyretologia: a Rational Account of the Cause and Cures of Agues.
- Robert Talbor (1682) The English Remedy: Talbor's Wonderful Secret for Curing of Agues and Feavers.
- ^ S2CID 220147336.
- JSTOR 44438162.
- ^ Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood, ed. (1918). "Cinchona". The Dispensatory of the United States of America.
- ^ William Cullen, Benjamin Smith Barton (1812). Professor Cullen's treatise of the materia medica. Edward Parker.
peruvian.
- PMC 2459939.
- ISBN 9780226790121.
- JSTOR 42598886.
- ^ "Hakgala garden". Department of Agriculture, Government of Sri Lanka. Retrieved 11 June 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Fry, Carolyn (6 January 2007). "The Kew Gardens of Sri Lanka". Travel. London: Timesonline, UK. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
- JSTOR 4114959.
- JSTOR 4102564.
- ^ King, George (1876). A manual of Cinchona cultivation in India. Calcutta: Government Press.
- ^ Sources: Life of Maury by Diane Corbin and Scientist of the Sea by Frances Leigh Williams.
- S2CID 153489022.
- PMID 24287061.
- ^ a b c "Cinchona Missions Expedition (1942–1944)". National Museum of Natural History: Historical Expeditions. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- PMID 21936230.
- ^ Chisholm 1911.
- ^ EA 1920.
- PMID 28997438.
- ASIN B000J31E44.
- ISBN 978-1-4326-8837-0.
- ^ "Quinine". Encyclopædia Britannica (10 ed.). 1902.
- doi:10.1038/145458b0.
- ^ Groothoff, A.; Henry, T.A. (1933). "The Preparation, Analysis and Standardisation of Totaquina". Rivista di Malariologia. 12 (1): 87–91.
- doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.297.2.8. Archived from the original(PDF) on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
- ^ EB (1878), p. 781.
References
- Gänger, Stefanie. A Singular Remedy: Cinchona across the Atlantic World, 1751–1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) online book review
- Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 6. .
- Paton, James (1878), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 780–2 , in Baynes, T. S. (ed.),
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 6 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 369–70
- Druilhe, P.; et al. (1988). "Activity of a Combination of Three Cinchona Bark Alkaloids against Plasmodium falciparum in vitro". Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 32 (2): 250–254. PMID 3284455.
- Ruiz López, Hipólito (1998), Schultes, Richard Evans; María José Nemry von Thenen de Jaramillo-Arango (eds.), The Journals of Hipólito Ruiz: Spanish Botanist in Peru and Chile 1777–1788, Timber Press
External links
- Burba, J. Cinchona Bark. Archived 20 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine. University of Minnesota Libraries.
- Using Bark to Cure the Bite. Botany Global Issues Map. McGraw Hill.
- Cinchona Project Field Books, 1938–1965 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Articles
- "The tree that changed the world map", By Vittoria Traverso, 28 May 2020, BBC.com.