British Imperialism and its Legacies: Cinchona sp. (Quinine)
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of plants from other countries. The specimen of Cinchona was collected by Scottish physician George Bidie (1830–1913) in southern India in 1873. The genus consists of over 23 species of evergreen shrubs or small trees that are native to the South American Andes. Its bark is rich in chemicals (alkaloids) and was used medicinally by indigenous people. Spanish missionaries and colonials became aware of its fever-reducing properties, and it became known as Jesuit’s bark or Loxa bark. The precise origins of its first use as protection against malaria is unclear, but the exploitation of the trees to extract the active chemical quinine had a devastating impact on wild populations of the species.
The British and other Europeans were greatly affected by malarial sickness and needed to have reliable supplies of quinine. European powers sent explorers to collect plants and seeds from South America, and the Dutch and British introduced plants to Java and India respectively. In the 1860s, plants were grown at experimental gardens in Sri Lanka and the Indian Nilgiri Hills, and plantations were quickly established. Cultivation here, and at similar plantations worldwide, greatly facilitated colonial work in tropical lands, notably in Africa. It is considered that the availability of quinine played a significant role in facilitating the colonisation of Africa by Europeans.
George Bidie was superintendent of the Madras Museum Service and collected several of the specimens in Glasgow Museums’ collection, which came to Glasgow following a donation from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the late 1870s. Bidie, born in Banff in 1830, was a physician who joined the Madras Medical Service in 1856, but also served as Museum superintendent between 1872 and 1884. In 1873 he was serving on the Cinchona Commission which was , investigating the viability of local cultivation of Cinchona and the production of quinine.
Most of the quinine used to treat malaria came from Dutch plantations, notably in Java, but during the 1900s synthetic drugs became more commonly used, in part due to quinine’s side effects. However, recent World Health Organization reports have recommended that natural quinine should be made more readily available in order to treat the disease in remote and impoverished communities.
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