Preparation of Cinchonine

Glass stoppered bottle with rubber cover, containing original preparation of cinchonine, an antimalarial agent, by Pierre Joseph Pelletier, 1810-1840.

In 1820, Pierre Joseph Pelletier (1788-1842), a French chemist, and Joseph Caventou (1795-1877), a French pharmacist, isolated quinine and extracted it from cinchona bark. Cinchona had long been used to treat fevers, most notably malaria. Quinine is what makes the bark so effective as a treatment for the disease.

Cinchonine is one of many compounds found in the cinchona bark. In 1810, Portuguese doctor and scientist Bernardino António Gomes was the first to extract cinchonine. He also realised that not all compounds from cinchona bark were equally good at treating malaria.