CINCHONA, the generic name of a number of trees which belong to the family Rubiaceae. Botanically the genus includes trees of varying size, some reaching a height of 8oft. and upwards, with evergreen leaves and deciduous stipules. The flowers are arranged in panicles, white or pinkish in colour, with a pleasant odour, the calyx being five-toothed superior, and the corolla tubular, five-lobed and fringed at the margin. The stamens are five, almost concealed by the tubular corolla, and the ovary terminates in a fleshy disk. The fruit is an ovoid or subcylindrical capsule, splitting from the base and held together at the apex. The numerous seeds are flat and winged all round. About 4o species have been distinguished, but of these not more than about a dozen have been economically utilized. The plants are natives of the western mountainous regions of South America, their geographical range extending from 1 o° N. to 2 2 ° S. lat.; and they flourish generally at an elevation of from 5,00o to 8,000ft. above sea-level, although some have been noted growing as high as I I,000ft., and others down to 2,60o feet.
The trees are valued solely on account of their bark, which long has been the source of the valuable febrifuge or antipyretic medicine, quinine (q.v.) . The earliest well-authenticated instance of the medicinal use of cinchona bark is found in the year 1638, when the countess of Chinchon (hence the name), the wife of the governor of Peru, was cured of an attack of fever by its adminis tration. The medicine was recommended in her case by the Corregidor of Loxa, who was said himself to have practically experienced its supreme virtues eight years earlier. A knowledge of the bark was disseminated throughout Europe by members of the Jesuit brotherhood, whence it also became generally known as Jesuits' bark. According to another account, this name arose from its value having been first discovered to a Jesuit missionary who, when prostrate with fever, was cured by the administration of the bark by a South American Indian. In each of the above instances the fever was no doubt malaria.
The bark was formerly procured by cutting down the trees, which grew isolated or in small clumps in the dense forests of New Granada, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Cultivation was first tried in Algeria, but failed. Later,'in 1854, the Dutch Government fitted out an expedition to South America and obtained several hundred trees which were planted in Java. A British expedition to the Andes in 1859 brought back trees which were planted in Ceylon and India. The cultivation was at first on a large scale and very successful in Ceylon, but the decrease in price of quinine and the attacks of disease caused it to be given up there. The plantations of Java have now almost the monopoly, though a con siderable amount is grown in India. The bark of several species is employed for the extraction of the alkaloids, quinine, cinchon idine and cinchonine, e.g., C. succirubra, C. calisaya, C. cordifolia, C. officinalis and C. Sedgeriana.