In article ,
David Hill wrote:
Did you know?
Quinine was called the Jesuit bark by the protestants in Cromwell's day and
thus was not allowed in England.
With the result that when Oliver Cromwell caught malaria there was no
effective treatment and he died of it.

It's certainly possible, but it wasn't exactly a routine treatment
then, being first referred to in Europe in 1643. If one of the Web
pages contained a contemporary reference, I would be rather more
convinced by them.

And quinine is, indeed, seriously toxic. In prophylactic dosage, it
leads to nerve damage (usually starting with tinnitus and then
deafness) within a few years - and the same thing applies to more
than a few treatments, because the doses are higher for that.

No, that is not why I am deaf, though I can't rule out that it had
some effect. I wasn't given prophylactic quinine for long, as the
newer and safer drugs started to come out in the late 1940s.
Paludrine, of course, is ineffective against many forms of malaria,
and was when it was introduced.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.