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Cinchona

Cinchona succirubra (officinalis); Peruvian bark.

Tincture of the dried bark.

Hahnemann's experimentation with Cinchona bark, inspired during his translation of William Cullen's Treatise on Materia medica, led him in 1790 to the recognition of the principle of similia similibus (cure by similars).

Peruvian bark was introduced to our practice by Hahnemann in his first collection of homeopathic materia medica, the Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis (1805). Expanded proving symptoms were published in Materia Medica Pura vol. 3 (1815). Early homoeopathic application is described in Hahnemann's article Some Kinds of Continued and Remittent Fevers (Hufeland's Journal, 1798).

Cinchona is called Quina (Gheena), or Quina-Quina (roughly rendered as "bark of barks" or "medicine of medicines") by the natives of Peru. It was introduced to Europe by the Countess Ana de Osoria, wife of the fourth count of Chinchon (Spain), Spanish Viceroy to Peru. She was reportedly cured of a tertian fever by this bark in 1638, through the recommendation of a Jesuit, and subsequently introduced the bark to Europe for this purpose in 1640, taking its name from her town of Chinchon. In Hahnemann's day, 500,000 tons of this bark was imported annually for the employment of old-school medicine in the treatment of fevers, particularly the marsh- or intermittent fevers endemic in Europe at that time. This is the natural source of Quinine, and the Quinine-derived antimalarial drugs of conventional practice. The name "China" is likely a Europeanization of the Peruvian name "Quina", confounded with the name "Cinchona" and its source from the "new Orient".

Three species of the genus Cinchona (C. succirubra, C. ledgeriana, & C. calisaya) are considered "official" for pharmacologic use, of 36 species native to Central and South America. These broadleaf evergreen trees, standing 6-24 meters tall, are found on mountainsides at elevations between 1500-2400 meters, from 10 degrees north to 20 degrees south latitude, on the eastern slopes of the central Andes chain (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador) and western Cordelleras chain, to the highlands to Colombia, Venezuela, Caracas & the Caribean.

Cinchona belongs to the botanical family Rubiaceae; other Rubiaceaids in our homoeopathic materia medica include: cahin., ceph., chin., chin-b., coff., coff-t., gali., ip., mit., rub-t., yohim

In his Treatise on Materia Medica, the Scottish physician William Cullen suggested that Cinchona's efficacy in the treatment of intermittent fevers could be attributed to its bitter and astringent properties, acting upon the stomach. In arguably the most audacious footnote in the history of translation, Hahnemann wrote in the German edition:

By combining the strongest bitters and the strongest astringents we can obtain a compound which, in small doses, possesses much more of both these properties than the bark, and yet in all Eternity no fever specific can be made from such a compound. The author should have accounted for this. This undiscovered principle of the effect of the bark is probably not very easy to find. Let us consider the following: Substances which produce some kind of fever (very strong coffee, pepper, arnica, ignatia bean, arsenic) counteract these types of intermittent fever. I took, for several days, as an experiment, four drams of good china twice daily. My feet and finger tips, etc., at first became cold; I became languid and drowsy; then my heart began to palpitate; my pulse became hard and quick; an intolerable anxiety and trembling (but without a rigor); prostration in all the limbs; then pulsation in the head, redness of the cheeks, thirst; briefly, all the symptoms usually associated with intermittent fever appeared in succession, yet without the actual rigor. To sum up: all those symptoms which to me are typical of intermittent fever, as the stupefaction of the senses, a kind of rigidity of all joints, but above all the numb, disagreeable sensation which seems to have its seat in the periosteum over all the bones of the body - all made their appearance. This paroxysm lasted from two to three hours every time, and recurred when I repeated the dose and not otherwise. I discontinued the medicine and I was once more in good health. ...

Peruvian bark, which is used as a remedy for intermittent fever, acts because it can produce symptoms similar to those of intermittent fever in healthy people. - Samuel Hahnemann, 1790

Carvings of the leaves & blossoms of Cinchona rightly decorate the Hahnemann Monument in Washington, DC; our only national monument to a physician.

Cinchona Caselet