Quinine – From the Sacred Bark to a Wonder Drug
Chapter 3.
The Successful Charlatan and His Secret Recipe
When this miraculous Jesuit’s powder came to Europe, not everyone was happy with it. For Protestants, it was hard for them to accept that the cure for the most ancient and deadly disease came from Jesuits, their religious rivals. All Protestants immediately rejected the powder, and they called it “Jesuit plot”. In addition, the bark was awfully bitter. “We knew it, those Jesuits are trying to poison us!”. In countries dominated by Protestants, such as England, Holland, and Germany, pretty much everybody refused to use it. As a result, even many years after the cinchona bark entered Europe, the death rate of malaria did not drop in these countries; many people died due to untreated malaria.
Another layer of resistance came from the medicine field due to the concerns of unknown principle of action, unclear dosage and treatment duration. The environment of medicinal uncertainty, together with the religious resistance, bred many charlatans and hucksters, among whom the most famous one was an English apothecary named Robert Talbor.
Robert Talbor, born in 1642, was just a quack, and he had no proper medical training. He went to Essex in 1668 and developed his secret recipe for malaria, a recipe he named “Pyretologia”. In 1672, he wrote a slim publication, entitled “Pyretologia: A Rational Account of the Cause and Cure of Agues”, which was more like a marketing brochure promoting his miracle drug than a scientific paper. In this article, he described how to administer Pyretologia in detail, but only vaguely mentioned that the drug was a preparation of four vegetables, whereof two were foreign and the other domestic. He specifically warned against the use of chinchona bark:
“… let me advise the world beware of all palliative cures and especially that known the name of Jesuits’ Powder, as it is given by unskillful hands for I have seen dangerous effects follow the taking of the medicine uncorrected and unprepared.”
When physicians requested him to provide more complete information of his mystery Pyretologia, Talbor responded that he deserved to be compensated before releasing the ingredients of the drug:
“I intend hereafter to publish a larger, and fuller account of my particular method, and medicine, not being willing to conceal such useful remedies from the world any longer, than till I have made some little advantage myself, repay that charge and trouble I have at in the search and study of so great and unheard of secrets.”
When he was asked the cause of malaria fever, his response was:
“Gentleman, I do not pretend to know anything about fever except that it is a disease which all you others do not know how to cure, but which I cure without fail.”
The mystery Pyretologia turned Talbor from a poor man into a famous, successful, and rich one. Using his secret recipe, Talbor successfully cured many aristocrats and royalty, including King Charles II of England and the son of King Louis XIV of France. It was an incredible journey. He was appointed as a physician of two kings and became a celebrated healer of the royal courts in London, Madrid, and Paris.
King Louis XIV was thrilled with the miracle cure and offered to buy the ingredients with 2,000 gold livre (French pounds) and a lifetime pension, a reward that was hard to turn down. Talbor accepted the offer with one condition: the ingredients of his wonderful secret recipe would only be made public after his death. The King agreed, and it did not take long to wait - Talbor died 2 years later, in 1681. Apparently, Talbor did not get a chance to enjoy his royal reward very long. One year after his death, the key component of Pyretologia was identified and released. Guess what was the secret ingredient? Jesuits’ Powder – the ground bark of the cinchona tree.
[Written by Guohua An; Copyrighted content]