CINCHONA AND ITS ALKALOIDS IN THE TREAT¬ 
MENT OF MALARIA 
By ERWIN E. NELSON 
DEPARTMENT OP PHARMACOLOGY, TULANE UNIVERSITY OP LOUISIANA SCHOOL OP 
MEDICINE, NEW ORLEANS 
The cinchona official in the United States 
Pharmacopoeia XI is the dried bark of the 
stem or root of three species of cinchona, 
viz., Cinchona succirubra, or red cinchona, 
C. Ledgeriana and C. Calisaya or yellow 
cinchona, or of hybrids of these species with 
other species. This bark must yield not less 
than 5 per cent of total alkaloids. The 
chief source of cinchona bark at present is 
the East Indian island of Java, where the 
Dutch have developed its cultivation to a 
high degree. The consumption of cinchona 
derivatives in the United States is not 
exactly known, but the Department of 
Commerce estimates it at about 5,000,000 
ounces per year (Concannon 1940). Since 
the war broke out in Europe there has been 
a definite increase in the importation into 
the United States. Considering importa¬ 
tions of bark on the basis of their alkaloidal 
content, there was imported between Sep¬ 
tember 1, 1939, and March 1, 1940, the 
equivalent of 5,000,000 ounces of cinchona 
alkaloids, as compared with 2,270,000 
ounces for the corresponding period of 
1938—39. As a result of these increases in 
importation the Department of Commerce 
believes that there are in the United States 
approximately 10,000,000 ounces of quinine 
sulfate, or enough to last for a period of 
more than two years. In the latter part of 
1939, the War Department purchased 
800,000 ounces to be held for emergency 
(Concannon 1940). 
The small fraction of imports that has 
in the past come from Latin American 
countries has also increased extensively. 
According to the figures of the Department 
of Commerce, the importation of cinchona 
from Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia 
for the first 5 months of 1940 amounted to 
nearly 81,000 pounds, as compared with 
less than 19,000 for the corresponding 
months of 1939 (Chapman 1940). The 
only justifiable uses of the cinchona alka¬ 
loids in the opinion of this reviewer are for 
their effect on the heart in certain types of 
disordered rhythm and for their action 
against the organisms responsible for 
malaria. Actually much of the material 
imported goes into hair tonics, headache 
remedies, and the so-called chill tonics. 
Restriction of the use of the cinchona alka¬ 
loids to the treatment of malaria would be 
a very proper emergency measure. 
From the bark of various species of cin¬ 
chona there have been isolated more than 
20 alkaloids. Although the constitution 
of not all of these is known, those which 
are of importance to the present discussion 
are members of a closely related series 
whose general formula is given in Fig. 1. 
H 
Quinoline Secondary Quinuclidine 
Alcohol 
Fig. 1. General formula for the quinine series of 
alkaloids (modified from Findlay 1939). 
In quinine and quinidine R = methoxy 
(-OCH3), and R' = vinyl (-CH = CH 2 ). 
In cinchonine and cinchonidine R = H, and 
R' remains (-CH = CH 2 ). When R be¬ 
comes - OH, there is formed the base 
cupreine. Formation of the hydro-bases 
of cupreine and of the above alkaloids 
