Ague tree

Sassafras albidum (Nuttal) Nees (a.k.a. S. officinale Nees et Erbem and S. varifolium Kuntze), saxifras, ague tree, cinnamon wood, saloop (Anonymous, 1997)... 

Sassafras Sassafras albidum Ague tree, saloop... 

Sassafras. Saxifrax ague tree cinnamon wood saloop. Bark of root of Sassafras albidum (Nutt.) Nees [5. vartifaHum (Salisb.) Kuntze, S. officinale Nees Eberm.], Lauraceae. Habit. North America. Constit. Root 2% volatile oil. Bark of root 6-9% volatile oil sassafrid, wax. 

Among the many useful discoveries which this age has made, there are few which better deserve the attention of the public than what I am going to lay before your Lordship. There is a bark of an English tree, which I have found by experience to be a powerful astringent and very efficacious in curing agues and intermittent disorders. 

In 1763 the use of willow tree bark was reported in more specific terms by Reverend Edward Stone in a lecture to the Royal Society in London. He used its extracts to treat the fever resulting from malaria (then common in Britain there are some marshes in the UK where the malarial mosquito still persists). He also found that it helped with the agues , probably what is now called arthritis. Other common medicines of the time included opium to relieve pain and Peruvian cinchona bark for fevers (it contained quinine). 

Quinine was originally extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree (Peruvian bark or Jesuits bark) and was used to treat ague, that is fever, usually due to malaria. It fell out of fashion with the advent of other antimalarial drugs, but has once again become the drug of first choice for malaria originating in areas with multiresistant Plasmodium falciparum. To be effective, quinine plasma concentrations greater than the minimal inhibitory concentration must be achieved and maintained. 

During the seventeenth century the antimalarial activity of cinchona trivs growing wild in Peru was discovered. It is believed that Countess del Chinchon, wife of the Spanish Viceroy in Lima, Peru, was cured from severe attacks of malari.i by a remedy prepared from the bark of this native tree. Encouraged by the curatne effects of the Peruvian bark, the Spanish Viceroy introduced it in his homeland in 1639 for the treatment of ague. The powdered bark was later known as "/os Po/oos de la condesa" Subsequently, the Peruvian bark was widely used to cure "fevers" in... 

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