Cinchona

Pronunciation

• IPA: /sɪŋˈkəʊnÉ™/

Alternative forms

• chinchona, chincona

Origin

Named (by Linnaeus) after the Countess of Chinchón, who was cured of a fever by the bark while in Peru and brought a supply of it back to Europe.

Full definition of cinchona

Noun

1. Any of several South American trees, of the genus Cinchona, cultivated for its medicinal bark.
• 2001: 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. — Leslie Iversen, Drugs: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2001, p. 8)
2. The bark of these trees, that yields quinine alkaloids used to treat malaria.