The Miraculous Fever-tree

Book excerpt: "In 1623, ten cardinals and hundreds of their attendants died from the 'mal'aria' or 'bad air' of the Roman marshes while electing a new Pope. Their choice, Urban VIII, determined that a cure be found for the fever that was the scourge of Europe. In 1631 a young Jesuit apothecary in Peru sent to the Old World a cure that had been found in the New - where the disease was unknown." "The cure was quinine, an alkaloid made from the bitter red bark of the cinchona tree, which grows in the Andes. Europe's Protestants feared it was nothing more than a Catholic poison, but before long quinine would change the face of medicine and open the door to Western imperial adventure in Asia, Africa and beyond." --Book Jacket.