From a page by Joe Lenthall at
Magdalen College, Oxford:
Peruvian Jesuits introduced quinine into Europe around 1640. However the destruction of (cinchona) trees to obtain quinine made them rare and so a way of making it synthetically was sought. This was found in 1944 by Robert Woodward and William Doering by synthesising quinine from coal tar.
Cinchona is of the family
Rubiaceae which, as well as being unpronounceable to an American, is the same family as
coffee and
gardenia. It is an evergreen shrub, native to South America. Interestingly, once the anti-malarial properties of quinine were widely known, the demand for powdered cinchona bark became so great that most of the plants in South America were harvested. Only a few seeds were exported (illegally) to
Java, where until the 1940s almost 95% of the world supply of quinine originated. Eventually, seeds from Java were sent back to
Peru to start plantations there.
The Australian National University website lists quinine's common uses as: Analgesic, Anaesthetic, Antibacterial, Anti-malarial, Anti-microbial, Anti-parasitic, Antiseptic, Astringent, Febrifuge, and Muscle-relaxant.
References:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/mom/quinine/Quinine.htm
http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/fpt/nwfp/quinine/Quinine.html