The History of Simple Analgesics

Abstract

The Reverend Edward Stone, resting beneath his willow trees in 1758, chewed on a piece of the bark, whereupon the bitter taste “… immediately raised in me a suspicion of its having the properties of the Peruvian bark”1. Peruvian bark, which contains quinine, was known to be effective in some cases of ague, a term used to describe a nonspecific group of symptoms including headache, fever and rigors. Many of these patients would have suffered from malaria, hence the response to quinine, but Peruvian bark grew only in South America and an alternative treatment would have been a great breakthrough. Stone conducted experiments over the next five years. He determined that the willow bark was also effective in treating the fever of ague and presented his findings to the Royal Society. His work was published in the transactions but there was little excitement about his discovery for a further 40 years when chemists began pondering the active ingredients of plant-based medication.