Kim Walker, Royal Holloway University of London and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Quinology was a distinctly nineteenth-century discipline for assessing Andean fever tree (Cinchona spp.). The bark contains medicinal alkaloids, including quinine, and for nearly 350 years was the only effective treatment for malaria known to the West, and considered an important Imperial tool. European practitioners of quinology blended skills of botany, pharmacognosy, alkaloid analysis and occasional horticulture to assess efficacy and value of these trade barks. Taking the example of chemical manufacturer John Eliot Howard (1807-1883), this talk explores his methods and practise to ‘reverse botanise’ valuable species back to the Andes, and how this influenced British-Indian cultivation projects.
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Kim Walker is a PhD candidate completing a Doctoral Training Partnership between the Historical Geography Department, Royal Holloway and the Economic Botany Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. She works on the history of medicinal plants, with a focus on nineteenth century alkaloids. She is also the author of Just The Tonic, (2019, Kew publishing), a natural and social history of tonic water. www.kimwalkerresearch.co.uk www.twitter.com/kim_wyrt