Word: cinchona
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...colonies in 1721 to prevent serious cases of smallpox-condemned the use by Boston physicians of "Leaden Bullets," to be swallowed for "that miserable Distemper which they called the Twisting of the Guts." By the early 18th century, there were only two drugs known to be specific: cinchona bark for malaria, and mercury as an antisyphilitic agent. Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia (one of four physicians to sign the Declaration of Independence) used bloodletting so extensively that even his colleagues marveled at the survival of his patients. Thomas Jefferson said in 1807, "The patient ... sometimes gets well in spite...
That complacency proved costly. The spraying slowdown allowed the mosquitoes to thrive and multiply again. Quinine, used to treat malaria, is in short supply in some areas; India has not encouraged cultivation of the Cinchona trees from whose bark the drug is obtained (the malaria parasite is showing a rising resistance to the drug chloroquine, a synthetic substitute for quinine). Furthermore, rising petroleum prices have sent the costs of insecticides soaring, placing another burden on the shaky economics of the region. DDT, which cost India about $500 per ton in 1974, now costs...