Quinine and Alstonia Scholaris (Chhatim) in Malaria

Recent work has shown that Alstonia scholaris has little or no antimalarial action on Plasmodia of birds (Goodson, Henry and Macfie, 1930 ; Buttle, cited by Sharp, 1934), monkeys and man (Mukerji, Ghosh and Siddons, 1942). These findings do not bear out those of earlier workers in the treatment of fevers believed to be of malarial origin. It was claimed that the alkaloids of Alstonia were more effective than quinine. Unfortunately, in most of this early work the investigators apparently did not take the precaution of establishing the malarial nature of the fevers they treated by the demonstration of Plasmodia in the blood of the patients, with the result that their observations lose in scientific value. These earlier records have been reviewed by Mukerji et al. Hoc. cit.). In January 1944, the Surgeon-General with the Government of Bengal requested the senior author to investigate the efficacy of a poffibination of quinine and of 1 chhatim' in the. treatment of malaria in view of reports that the action of quinine is greatly enhanced by the addition of ' chhatim \ While the investigation on the synergistic action of ' chhatim' was in progress, Roy and Chatterjee (1944) published