Edgar Buckingham: Fluorescence of Quinine Salts
Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 27, Number 1 (2002) 57 EDGAR BUCKINGHAM: FLUORESCENCE OF QUININE SALTS John T. Stock, University of Connecticut Malaria, an often-fatal disease, has been a worldwide factured from cinchona trees that are cultivated in South plague for several thousand years. The discovery of America and in the Far East. the efficacy of substances present in the bark of vari- It must have been known ous cinchona trees, native since ancient times that certain to the Andes, provided substances appear to have one some relief. A real anti- color when viewed by transmit- malarial drug was not ted light and another when available until 1820, when viewed obliquely. Mineralo- Joseph Baptiste Caventou gists recognize a type of fluor- (1795-1877) and Josephe spar, pale green when viewed Pelletier (1788-1842) iso- against the light, but appearing lated quinine from the blue when viewed at an angle bark (1). Eighty years af- to the light. Unrefined petro- ter their discovery, a statue leum shows the same kind of honoring these chemists effect, as do certain substances was erected in Paris (Fig. when in solution. Fluorescein, 1). used both in the laboratory as Other workers estab- an indicator and industrially for lished the formula for qui- the location of leaks in waste nine, showed that it acts as water systems, is a familiar ex- a diacid base, and that it ample. Another is quinine or, is a methoxy derivative of because of its low solubility in a companion alkaloid, cin- water, one of its salts. The so- chonine. The elucidation lution, colorless when viewed of the structure of these directly, appears blue when compounds, largely due to viewed at an angle to the inci- the work of Wilhelm dent light.
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