Also quinin. [f. QUIN-A + -INE5.] An important alkaloid (C20H24N2O2) found in the bark of various species of cinchona and remigia, used largely in medicine as a febrifuge, tonic, and antiperiodic, chiefly in the form of the salt, sulphate of quinine, which is popularly termed quinine.
‘Quinine was introduced into medical practice in 1820’ (Syd. Soc. Lex., 1897).
1826. S. Cooper, First Lines Surg. (ed. 5), 36. A still better preparation, now much used, is the sulphate of quinine.
1834. [see CINCHONINE].
1859. Wilson & Geikie, Mem. E. Forbes, iv. 127. A few grains of silky white crystals of quinine were found sufficient to dispel the fever.
1887. Athenæum, 19 Feb., 260/1. Antifebrin is stated to be more effective than quinine in reducing fever.
b. attrib. and Comb., as quinine-bark, -compound, -purifier, -test; quinine-producing, -yielding adjs.; quinine-flower U.S., a plant of the gentian family, used locally as a febrifuge; quinine-tree Austral., (a) the horse-radish tree; (b) the native quince.
1880. C. R. Markham, Peruv. Bark, 216. The richest of quinine yielding trees. Ibid., 249. The tree has peculiarities not possessed by any other quinine-producing species.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 537. Examples are afforded … by the Quinine barks.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Diseases, vi. 105. The quinine test is generally conclusive in intermittents and in the various larval forms of malaria.
Hence Quininic a., pertaining to, derived from, quinine. Quininism = QUINISM (Mayne, Expos. Lex., 1858). Quininize v. = QUINIZE. Quininometry = QUINIMETRY.
