Cure for chills and fever
VISALAKSHI RAMANI
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It was the bark of a tree that finally cured the Countess Chinchon.
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Healing powers: The Cinchona.
According to legend, the first European to be cured of malaria was the Countess Chinchon — the wife of the Spanish Viceroy in Peru. As the recurring chills and fever brought her close to death, the Count begged the court physician to save the life of his wife.
Fever bark tree
But the prevailing practice at that time was bloodletting. In this process the “bad blood” of the patient was let out in order to cure him or her. But invariably blood letting rendered the patient weaker than before.
As a last resort, the Count turned to the medicines of the local Indians. The local medicine man treated such fevers with the potent potions made from the barks of a certain type of tree growing on the Andes.
The Countess survived the malarial attack. And she took the miracle cure with her, when she returned to Europe in the 1640s. No one is sure whether or not the legend is true, but the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus certainly believed it.
He named the “fever bark tree” Cinchona — after the countess, slightly misspelling her name!
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