Although the bark and the wood of trees are rarely edible, their extracts have been the most important cures in the world. It is said about Malaria that it has killed more people than all the wars and plagues in our history combined. Oliver Cromwell and Alexander the Great are two of the most widely known people who died from this cause. But there have been millions of others. For centuries, the single treatment known for Malaria was quinine, an alkaloid found in the bark of Cinchona tree, growing in the tropical forests of Bolivia and Peru.

Quinine was first time used to treat Malaria by the Quechua Indians and when finally arrived in Europe with the name of ”wonder-cure”, was used to treat king Carol the 2nd and the queen of Spain – among others. Quinine was chemically reproduced starting in 1940’s, but in recent years, last forms of malaria developed resistance to synthetic quinine, so the cinchona tree came back in the spotlight.

If you ever had a headache, chances are that you run for the medicine box to grab an aspirin, the most used drug in the world. Before the aspirin came in a box, the pains could be treated if the person was near water, where he would try to find a White Willow and chew its bark. Aspirin is a derivative from salicylic acid, that comes from the White Willow bark. Nowadays the aspirin is synthetically made.

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