Jesuit's bark, also known as cinchona bark, Peruvian bark or China bark, is a former remedy for malaria, as the bark contains quinine used to treat the disease.[1] The bark of several species of the genus Cinchona, family Rubiaceae indigenous to the western Andes of South America, was introduced to Jesuit missionaries as a traditional treatment for malaria by indigenous people in Peru during the 17th century.
The western history of cinchona bark dates back more than 350 years. Circa 1650, the physician Sebastiano Bado declared that this bark had proved more precious to mankind than all the gold and silver that the Spaniards had obtained from South America. In the 18th century, the Italian professor of medicine Bernardino Ramazzini said that the introduction of Peruvian bark would be of the same importance to medicine that the discovery of gunpowder was to the art of war, an opinion endorsed by contemporary writers on the history of medicine. The value of Jesuit's bark, and the controversy surrounding it, were both recognized by Benjamin Franklin, who wittily commented upon it in his Poor Richard's Almanack for October 1749, telling the story of Robert Talbot's use of it to cure the French Dauphin. Hugh Algernon Weddell observed, "Few subjects in natural history have excited general interest in a higher degree than cinchona; none perhaps have hitherto merited the attention of a greater number of distinguished men". Dissension, however, was rife at the time, mainly due to its source of discovery, the Jesuits. Alexander von Humboldt said, "It almost goes without saying that among Protestant physicians hatred of the Jesuits and religious intolerance lie at the bottom of the long conflict over the good or harm effected by Peruvian Bark".
Sebastiano Bado's book on the Chinchona
The Spanish Jesuit missionaries in Peru were taught the healing power of the bark by natives, between 1620 and 1630, when a Jesuit at Loxa was indebted to its use for his cure from an attack of malaria (Loxa Bark). It was used at the recommendation of the Jesuits in 1630, when the Countess of Chinchon (Cinchon; the derivative is Cinchona, the appellation selected by Carl Linnaeus in 1742; Clements Markham preferred "Chinchona",[2][3] ), wife of the new viceroy, who had just arrived from Europe, was taken ill with malaria at Lima. The countess was saved from death, and in thanksgiving caused large quantities of the bark to be collected. This she distributed to malaria sufferers, partly in person and partly through the Jesuits of St. Paul's College at Lima (pulvis comitissæ). She returned to Europe in 1640 and was the first to bring the bark there to spread its use through Spain and the rest of the continent, as stated by Markham. The Jesuit Barnabé de Cobo, in his capacity as procurator of the Peruvian province of his order, is credited with first bringing the bark from Lima to Spain, and afterwards to Rome and other parts of Italy, in 1632. In the meanwhile its merits must have been ascertained both in Lima and in various parts of Europe, as Count Chinchon and his physician Juan de Vega brought it back with them in 1640.
Count Chinchon, however, troubled himself little about the use or sale of the bark. A greater distribution resulted from the large quantity brought over by the Jesuit Bartolomé Tafur, who, like Cobo, came to Spain in 1643 while procurator of the Peruvian province of his order, proceeded through France (there is an alleged cure of the young Louis XIV, when still dauphin, effected by Father Tafur by means of Peruvian bark), and thence to Italy as far as Rome.
The celebrated Jesuit theologian John de Lugo, who became a cardinal in 1643, learned about the cinchona from Tafur, and remained from 1643 until his death in 1660 its faithful advocate, zealous defender, and generous, disinterested dispenser in Italy and the rest of Europe, for which he was honoured in the appellation of pulvis cardinalis, pulvis Lugonis, and by having several portraits painted of him. De Lugo had the bark analysed by the pope's physician in ordinary, Gabriel da Fonseca, who reported on it very favourably. Its distribution among the sick in Rome took place only on the advice and with the consent of the Roman doctors. The cardinal had more bark brought from America over the trade routes through Spain. Almost all the other patrons of the drug in those times appear to have been directly influenced by de Lugo; as, for instance, the lay brother Pietro Paolo Pucciarini, S. J. (1600–1661), apothecary in the Jesuit College at Rome, who undoubtedly deserves the greatest credit after de Lugo for distributing the genuine unadulterated article, and to whom are attributed the Roman directions for its use Schedula Romana, the earliest dating at least from 1651.
In his friend Honoré Fabri, a French Jesuit, who stayed for a time in Rome, de Lugo won a determined defender of the bark against the first anticinchona pamphlet written by the Brussels doctor Jean-Jacques Chifflet. Under the pseudonym of Antimus Conygius, Fabri wrote in 1655 the first paper on cinchona published in Italy, as well as the first of the long list of brochures defending its use and the only independent article on this bark which has been issued by a Jesuit. The two Genoese, Girolamo Bardi, a priest, and Sebastiano Baldo, a physician, who were among the pioneer advocates of the plant, were intimate with the cardinal, and Baldo prefixed to his principal work a letter from de Lugo, dated 1659, on cinchona, which shows that the cardinal even when seventy-seven years old was still active in its behalf.
Peruvian bark plantation in India 1864
Circumstances created a suitable opportunity for disseminating the bark from Rome throughout Europe by means of the Jesuits. In 1646, 1650, and 1652 the delegates to the eighth, ninth, and tenth general councils of the order (three from each province) returned to their homes, taking it with them, and at the same time there is evidence of its use in the Jesuit colleges at Genoa, Lyon, Leuven, Ratisbon, etc. The remedy – connected with the name of Jesuit – very soon reached England. The English weekly Mercurius Politicus in 1658 contained in four numbers the announcement that: "The excellent powder known by the name of 'Jesuit's powder' may be obtained from several London chemists". It remains to recall the fact that even in the 17th and 18th centuries the bark kept in the Jesuit pharmacies or in their colleges was considered particularly efficacious because they were better able to provide a genuine unadulterated supply. Further, that in those two centuries Jesuit missionaries took the remedy to the malaria regions of foreign countries, even reaching the courts of Peking, China and Kyoto, Japan, where they cured the emperor by its means; that in Peru during the 18th century they urged American collectors to lay out new plantations; and in the 19th century they were the first to plant cinchona outside of South America.
Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg cramps, quinine is not recommended for this purpose due to the risk of serious side effects. It can be taken by mouth or intravenously. Malaria resistance to quinine occurs in certain areas of the world. Quinine is also used as an ingredient in tonic water to impart a bitter taste.
Cinchona is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae containing at least 23 species of trees and shrubs. All are native to the tropical Andean forests of western South America. A few species are reportedly naturalized in Central America, Jamaica, French Polynesia, Sulawesi, Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, and São Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of tropical Africa, and others have been cultivated in India and Java, where they have formed hybrids.
Sir Clements Robert Markham was an English geographer, explorer and writer. He was secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) between 1863 and 1888, and later served as the Society's president for a further 12 years. In the latter capacity he was mainly responsible for organising the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1904, and for launching the polar career of Robert Falcon Scott.
Chinchón is a town and municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain. Located 50 km south-east of the city of Madrid, the municipality covers an area of 115.91 km2. As of 2018, it has a population of 5,239. Its historic centre, with a notable main square, was declared a Heritage Site in 1974.
Charles Ledger was an alpaca farmer noted for his work in connection with quinine, a treatment for malaria.
Luis Jerónimo Fernández de Cabrera Bobadilla Cerda y Mendoza, 4th Count of Chinchón, also known as Luis Xerónimo Fernandes de Cabrera Bobadilla y Mendoza, was a Spanish nobleman, Comendador of Criptana, Alcaide of the Alcázar de Segovia, Treasurer of Aragón, and captain general and Viceroy of Peru, from January 14, 1629, to December 18, 1639. His wife, Ana de Osorio (1599–1625), is credited as being one of the first Europeans to be treated with quinine, and as the person who introduced that medicine into Europe.
John de Lugo (1583–1660), a Spanish Jesuit and Cardinal, was an eminent scholastic theologian of the Baroque.
Hipólito Ruiz López, or Hipólito Ruiz, was a Spanish botanist known for researching the floras of Peru and Chile during an expedition under Carlos III from 1777 to 1788. During the reign of Carlos III, three major botanical expeditions were sent to the New World; Ruiz and José Antonio Pavón Jiménez were the botanists for the first of these expeditions, to Peru and Chile.
Cinchona officinalis is a South American tree in the family Rubiaceae. It is native to wet montane forests in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, between 1600–2700 meters above sea level.
Jean-Jacques Chifflet (Chiflet) was a physician, jurist, antiquarian and archaeologist originally from the County of Burgundy.
The history of malaria extends from its prehistoric origin as a zoonotic disease in the primates of Africa through to the 21st century. A widespread and potentially lethal human infectious disease, at its peak malaria infested every continent except Antarctica. Its prevention and treatment have been targeted in science and medicine for hundreds of years. Since the discovery of the Plasmodium parasites which cause it, research attention has focused on their biology as well as that of the mosquitoes which transmit the parasites.
Bernabé Cobo was a Spanish Jesuit missionary and writer. He played a part in the early history of quinine by his description of cinchona bark; he brought some to Europe on a visit in 1632.
Ludovico Bertonio was an Italian Jesuit missionary to South America.
Count of Chinchón is a title of Spanish nobility. It was initially created on 9 May 1520 by King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who granted the title to Fernando de Cabrera y Bobadilla.
John S. Sappington (1776-1856) was an American physician known for developing a quinine pill to treat malarial and other fever diseases in the Missouri and Mississippi valleys, where the disease was widespread. He later used the pill to prevent malaria. Because he both manufactured and sold "Dr. Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills", he became wealthy from his bestseller.
The Schedula Romana was a pharmaceutical handbill published in 1649. Generally assumed to have been designed after the knowledge of the cinchona bark properties brought from South America by Spanish Jesuit Juan de Lugo, the Schedula Romana is considered to be an early example of an efficient antimalarial recipe. The Schedula gives instructions on proper dosages and application of the cinchona bark. The doses recommended are likely to have been established by trial and error, and they are assumed to be relied on results obtained using the various recipes proposed by Roman apothecaries.
Francesco Torti was an Italian physician.
Myroxylon peruiferum, or quina, is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae. It is native to tropical forests of North and South America.
Manuel Incra Mamani was a Bolivian cascarillero from Coroico. He may have been of either Quechua and/or Aymara descent. Mamani found a cinchona tree species that had a higher proportion of quinine than most others. This species went into Dutch commercial cultivation, providing most of the world's quinine well into the 20th century.
Sebastiano Bado, sometimes Latinized as Sebastianus Baldus, was a Genoese physician notable for his medicinal usage of cinchona bark in the 17th century.
References
↑ "Cinchona". Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol.V. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1878. pp.780–2.
↑ Markham, Sir Clements R., A Memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Chinchon … (London, England: Trübner & Co., 1874), pp. 73–89.
↑ Conrad Wesselhoeft (July 1916) "The discovery of the cinchona bark," The New England Medical Gazette, 51: 349–361; see especially pp. 357–358.
Haggis, A. W. (1941). Fundamental Errors in the Early History of Cinchona (Reprinted from Bulletin of the history of medicine, Vol. X, 3 and 4, October and November 1941ed.). Place of publication not identified.
Urdang, George (1945). "The Legend of Cinchona". The Scientific Monthly. 61 (1): 17–20. Bibcode:1945SciMo..61...17U.
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