cinchona

plural cinchonas · alternative chinchona · alternative chincona

1. countableuncountableA tree or shrub of the genus Cinchona, native to the Andes in South America but since widely cultivated in Indonesia and India as well for its medicinal bark.

   German chemists were the first to isolate pure drug chemicals from herbal medicines, with the isolation of morphine from crude opium in 1803 and quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree in 1820.

   2001, Leslie Iversen, Drugs: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, page 8

   1 more example

   He seems to have collected plants of every kind - sugar-cane, coffee, cinchona, cocoa, indigo, and many others - and thus demonstrates beyond a doubt that Arnheim's Land will not prove herself behind the rest of the tropical world both in planting and agriculture, when the labour question is settled, and a properly-arranged coolie system enables planters to give the country a proper trial.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 222

   Synonyms: quinquina

2. countableuncountableThe bark of these plants, which yield quinine and other alkaloids useful in reducing fevers and particularly in combatting malaria.

   Synonyms: cinchona bark, Jesuit's bark, Peruvian bark, quinine bark, quinquina

3. countableuncountablemedicineAny medicine chiefly composed of the prepared bark of these plants.