Tree Bark for Soldiers: Quinine Substitutes

lelliott19

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[Public domain Watercolor of a branch of the fever-tree (Pinckneya pubens) 1827-1838; Creative commons]
My attention having been occupied with the subject of substitutes for imported medicines, I have thought that if some hints were given the Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons in the field with respect to the useful properties of a few articles (easily attainable in every part of the country,) it would greatly lessen the use of the more expensive medicines...They are familiar to all, but still without special recommendation, they are likely to escape attention....It is not intended that a blind or exclusive reliance should be placed in them - but they are recommended to supply a great and present need. ~ Francis Peyre Porcher, July 13, 1862

Porcher goes on to tout the bark of the Dogwood, Tulip poplar, and Willow, as well as a plant called Thoroughwort, as "quite effective in the management of the malarial fevers that will prevail among our troops during the summer..." These indigenous plants were recommended as substitutes for Peruvian Cinchona bark. The alkaloids from cinchona bark are better known as quinine.
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Weekly Chronicle & Sentinel. (Augusta, Ga.), July 22, 1862, page 2.

The same day, Confederate Medical Purveyor, Dr. William Hutson Prioleau, ran an ad for bark of these same trees, but his list also includes Pinckneya Pubens - aka Georgia fever tree. Turns out this Pinckneya Pubens tree is closely related to the Cinchona tree (quinine.) Cinchona grows only in South America, but Pinckneya Pubens grows in the southeastern US - specifically, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.
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Daily Morning News. (Savannah, Ga.), July 23, 1862, page 2.
During the Civil War, when the blockade began to severely limit availability of quinine, the bark of these indigenous trees was soaked in rum or whiskey and dispensed in place of quinine for malaria and other intermittent fevers.
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The Daily Sun. (Columbus, Ga.), July 05, 1862, page 2.

Dr Francis Peyre Porcher (1824-1895) who submitted the ad published in the Chronicle & Sentinel, started the war as Surgeon of Holcombe's Legion, but he was quickly tapped to begin identifying indigenous plants which could be used as substitutes for commonly required pharmaceuticals. His work resulted in a book entitled "Resources of the southern fields and forests, medical, economical, and agricultural, being also a medical botany of the Confederate States; with practical information on the useful properties of the trees, plants, and shrubs" which was distributed to Confederate Surgeons in 1863.

Dr. William Huston Prioleau, Sr. (1835-1921) who published the ad in the Morning News, was Assistant Surgeon and Medical Purveyor in Georgia. Prioleau was appointed Medical Purveyor Aug 4, 1862 and built a Laboratory at Macon, GA for the purposes of extracting medicinal ingredients from indigenous plants.

Dr. Job Sobiesky Weatherly, II (1828 - 1891) was Medical Purveyor "J. S. Weatherly," who sent in the ad that appeared in the Daily Sun. Weatherly was chief of the corps of Confederate Army Surgeons at the Battle of Shiloh, but by July 1862, had been promoted to Chief Medical Purveyor for the Confederate Army of Mississippi. After the war he returned to his practice in Montgomery, AL and, in 1872, he was elected Vice-President of the American Medical Association.
 
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My understanding is that Aspirin was derived from extract of tree bark, per native and folk uses for certain barks as an analgesics.

I'm old enough to have read the Foxfire series back in the hippie days -- we were a revived generation that didn't just automatically buy into what "doc" (or the Government for that matter) had been telling us about modern scientific methods before they had actually completed the experiments, as it turned out. We re-discovered how green and efficient our Victorian ancestors had actually been. On the upside folks went back to natural tilling, throwing pots, making yogurt, midwifery and breastfeeding, on the downside we couldn't quite let armpit and leg hair on women pass as acceptable -- a legacy of our parent's generation.
 
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