A boon to mankind. Cinchona pubescens Vahl, Kebun Raya Cibodas, Java, Indonesia
Even today there are still more than 350 million cases of malaria worldwide each year and one to three million people - mostly in sub-Saharan Africa - die of that terrible ague-governed malady. It's hard to imagine that well into the twentieth century malaria was a major affliction in Europe and North America. In a country such as the Netherlands - who would now even dream of malaria there? - the last case of endemic malaria occurred as late as 1959. It wasn't until 1970 that the WHO officially declared Holland to be malaria-free. Especially hard hit were coastal provinces such as Zeeland - since about 1640 - and the newly drained polders around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. Likewise, malaria was a major illness in North America until well into the first quarter of the twentieth century.
It wasn't until the end of the nineteenth century that the actual cause of malaria was discovered. But it had been well known since the middle of the seventeenth century that the bark of the cinchona tree of Peru and neighboring countries had a mitigating and perhaps curative working on at least malaria's symptoms. It became known as 'Peruvian Bark' or 'Jesuit Bark'. English and particularly Dutch colonial powers were highly interested in procuring that bark for their own use and to distil from it the high-quality drug quinine.
The story of how seeds and plants came into their possession in the first half of the nineteenth century is full of adventure, subterfuge, great danger and scientific stalwarthness and acuity.
Among the central players in the drama of its 'culturisation' are Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn and Johannes Elias Teijsmann (whose names often recur in my photo-log) aided by Justus Karl Hasskarl (1811-1894). Obviously, there are other players as well... But these three men - often at loggerheads with each other - were indispensable and enormously hardworking botanists who put down the groundwork for the growing of Cinchona on Java, Indonesia. Thus they were instrumental in the early development of quinine - the natural anti-malarial drug.
Such was then the power and monopoly of Dutch Cinchona-science that The Netherlands until into the Second World War held an 85-95 percent world monopoly on the production of quinine, mostly from Cinchona plantations of Java. The Japanese invasion of the then Dutch East Indies - in particular Java - in 1942 cut the supply line of quinine to the Allied forces whose soldiers now suffered more than ever from that disease. Enormous effort was put into finding a synthetic quinine-like alkaloid, and by 1944 such a drug had been found. But even today, natural quinine is still the only drug for at least one kind of malaria. Its production though is no longer on Java plantations but mainly in Zaire.
This photo is of Cinchona pubescens - hairy cinchona - which used to be called Cinchona succirurbra - red-sap cinchona. And there are other synonyms as well. It was first described scientifically by Martin Henrichsen Vahl (1749-1804), a student of our friend Carolus Linnaeus.
Last year I took many photos of Cinchona flowers at the Taman Junghuhn in Lembang, but none of them was good enough to post. Just the other day, I found a flowering tree in the Kebun Raya Cibodas - one of the places Teijsmann considered most suitable for its cultivation, to the enormous indignation of Junghuhn. My little Sony T900 patiently clicked about 70 photos, of which this is the best one. Sorry for some fuzziness... Maybe I should get another camera for this kind of macro-shot. The flower measures only between 4 and 6 mm across, and its calyx is about 10 mm deep.
As I slowly ambled away from the fruit of my labor, some shiny, sun-colored skinks - Mabuya multifasciata - slipped into the underbrush, and what I hope might have been a Bartel's rat - Maxomys bartelsii. You might imagine how lucky I felt in such a wonderful environment!
A boon to mankind. Cinchona pubescens Vahl, Kebun Raya Cibodas, Java, Indonesia
Even today there are still more than 350 million cases of malaria worldwide each year and one to three million people - mostly in sub-Saharan Africa - die of that terrible ague-governed malady. It's hard to imagine that well into the twentieth century malaria was a major affliction in Europe and North America. In a country such as the Netherlands - who would now even dream of malaria there? - the last case of endemic malaria occurred as late as 1959. It wasn't until 1970 that the WHO officially declared Holland to be malaria-free. Especially hard hit were coastal provinces such as Zeeland - since about 1640 - and the newly drained polders around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. Likewise, malaria was a major illness in North America until well into the first quarter of the twentieth century.
It wasn't until the end of the nineteenth century that the actual cause of malaria was discovered. But it had been well known since the middle of the seventeenth century that the bark of the cinchona tree of Peru and neighboring countries had a mitigating and perhaps curative working on at least malaria's symptoms. It became known as 'Peruvian Bark' or 'Jesuit Bark'. English and particularly Dutch colonial powers were highly interested in procuring that bark for their own use and to distil from it the high-quality drug quinine.
The story of how seeds and plants came into their possession in the first half of the nineteenth century is full of adventure, subterfuge, great danger and scientific stalwarthness and acuity.
Among the central players in the drama of its 'culturisation' are Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn and Johannes Elias Teijsmann (whose names often recur in my photo-log) aided by Justus Karl Hasskarl (1811-1894). Obviously, there are other players as well... But these three men - often at loggerheads with each other - were indispensable and enormously hardworking botanists who put down the groundwork for the growing of Cinchona on Java, Indonesia. Thus they were instrumental in the early development of quinine - the natural anti-malarial drug.
Such was then the power and monopoly of Dutch Cinchona-science that The Netherlands until into the Second World War held an 85-95 percent world monopoly on the production of quinine, mostly from Cinchona plantations of Java. The Japanese invasion of the then Dutch East Indies - in particular Java - in 1942 cut the supply line of quinine to the Allied forces whose soldiers now suffered more than ever from that disease. Enormous effort was put into finding a synthetic quinine-like alkaloid, and by 1944 such a drug had been found. But even today, natural quinine is still the only drug for at least one kind of malaria. Its production though is no longer on Java plantations but mainly in Zaire.
This photo is of Cinchona pubescens - hairy cinchona - which used to be called Cinchona succirurbra - red-sap cinchona. And there are other synonyms as well. It was first described scientifically by Martin Henrichsen Vahl (1749-1804), a student of our friend Carolus Linnaeus.
Last year I took many photos of Cinchona flowers at the Taman Junghuhn in Lembang, but none of them was good enough to post. Just the other day, I found a flowering tree in the Kebun Raya Cibodas - one of the places Teijsmann considered most suitable for its cultivation, to the enormous indignation of Junghuhn. My little Sony T900 patiently clicked about 70 photos, of which this is the best one. Sorry for some fuzziness... Maybe I should get another camera for this kind of macro-shot. The flower measures only between 4 and 6 mm across, and its calyx is about 10 mm deep.
As I slowly ambled away from the fruit of my labor, some shiny, sun-colored skinks - Mabuya multifasciata - slipped into the underbrush, and what I hope might have been a Bartel's rat - Maxomys bartelsii. You might imagine how lucky I felt in such a wonderful environment!