... quinine, in a period greatly troubled by malaria, can be explained. Cinchona, discovered in Spanish America and known in seventeenth-century Europe, had demonstrable effects in the treatment of malaria but, because it was an additive rather than a purgative, physicians rejected it on theoretical grounds. Its eventual acceptance later revolutionized drug therapeutics, but this revolution did not affect ... — Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
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