What is quinine?

Question

I heard it can treat disease... What diseases?

Answer 1

Quinine (IPA: 'kwi:ni:n) is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), antimalarial, analgesic (painkilling), and anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine.

Answer 2

Quinine was the first effective treatment for falciparum malaria, appearing in therapeutics in the 17th century. It remained the antimalarial drug of choice until the 1940s, when other drugs took over. Since then, many effective antimalarials have been introduced, although quinine is still used to treat the disease in certain critical situations. Quinine is available with a prescription in the United States. Quinine is also used to treat nocturnal leg cramps and arthritis, and there have been attempts (with limited success) to treat prion diseases. It was once a popular heroin adulterant.

Answer 3

Quinine may be familiar to you if you drink gin and tonic or perhaps vodka and tonic. This is because quinine is in the tonic and gives it that bitter taste. It is a white powder that is obtained from the bark of the cinchona tree that is found in the Andes mountain range of Ecuador and Peru. Quinine was introduced into Europe around 1640. However the destruction of these trees to obtain quinine made them rare and so a way of making it synthetically was sought. This was found in 1944 by Robert Woodward and William Doering.

Tonic water is not its only use though; it has use in medicine for it is the traditional treatment for muscle cramps. The reason for muscle cramps is not very well known yet but they are very common and quinine can reduce the frequency of muscle cramps for those who suffer on a weekly or even daily basis. The way in which quinine helps to reduce frequency and severity of cramps is not known either and there have been studies to try and assess the efficacy of the drug.

Malaria has been around ever since records began about 6000 years ago. Malaria is caused by a parasite plasmodium vivax, which is carried by mosquitoes in tropical climates. It causes severe fevers that go through cycles of 48 to 72 hours, passing through hot and cold phases. In 1957 the countries of the world set forth to eradicate the malarial parasite from the Earth. In 1974 it failed after there was a realisation that the parasite was too widespread and integrated into the human system. It did help to improve public malaria awareness though and efforts are used to control the disease rather than to eradicate it. Quinine is excellent at reducing fevers and so it became the first and only, until the synthesis of other drugs, anti-malarial drug brought to Europe by the Jesuits. However these new synthesised drugs were preferred to the bark of the cinchona tree. New drugs included Chloroquine and Mefloquine (Larium). Mefloquine caused serious side effects and the parasite started to gain resistance to these drugs. This has led to renewed interest into quinine for an anti-malarial drug.

Answer 4

Quinine is a drug obtained from cinchona bark that is used chiefly in the treatment of malaria, an infection caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium, which is transmitted to humans by the bite of various species of mosquitoes. During the 300 years between its introduction into Western medicine and World War I, quinine was the only effective remedy for malaria.
Quinine, a large and complex molecule, is the most important alkaloid found in cinchona bark.
Quinine acts by interfering with the growth and reproduction of the Plasmodium, the malarial parasite that lives within the victim's red blood cells. Quinine causes the parasites to disappear from the blood and the symptoms of the disease are thereby alleviated. However, when quinine treatment ends, many patients relapse. They suffer another attack of malaria due to the failure of quinine to kill the malarial parasites in cells of the body other than the red blood cells. These parasites persist and, after a time, they reinvade the red blood cells and precipitate the relapse.
Aside from the treatment of malaria, quinine has also been used as a flavouring, and it provides the bitter taste in tonic water. In fact, "gin and tonic" was originally consumed in the past to prevent attacks of malaria

Answer 5

Quinine was once derived from the aspen tree. It was used to treat malaria and saved the lives of thousands on men digging the panama canal. Today they have other drugs and it's no longer taken from the tree. The malaria came from the bite of a mosquito. It's still prevalent in the South American countries.

Answer 6

Quinine can be found in nature or synthesized and has been used to treat fever, malaria, nocturnal leg cramps and arthritis. It is also present in tonic water, the reason gin & tonic became so popular in malaria-ridden colonial India.

Answer 7

Antimalarial