Quinine Shortage

THE War Production Board of the United States, on August 18, ordered druggists to return excess stocks of quinine and similar drugs to suppliers, because of a shortage resulting from the conquest of Java.

United States military operations in the tropical malaria belt have caused an increased demand for quinine. The order also prohibited the sale of quinine, cin chonine, cochonidine, quinidine, and tota quine, except for use as an anti-malarial agent.

Plans are under way for the large scale production of a synthetic quinine.

Scientists of the Allied nations now face the task of creating quinine syn thetically, or of producing it by a slight chemical twist from related substances found in the bark of other trees (says H. C. McKay, in “Smith’s Weekly”). At present there are two promising quinine substitutes (both originating in pre-war Germany) which are being used freely in Australia and on our tropical fronts, but of which stocks will run out unless we devise a quick, cheap way of making them. These are atebrin and plasmo quin.

Neither is a complete cure for malaria, but, used in turn, wipe out the parasites in different stages of their development in patients’ blood. Atebrin kills the earlier stage, plasmoquin the later stage, in which the animals (actually the para sites are tiny animals, not germs) have developed separate sexes, male and female. With the worst type of malig nant malaria, however, Army doctors rely on quinine bichloride (a very soluble form) injected straight into a vein for the first few days, followed by separate five-day courses of atebrin and plasmo quin in turn.

Word has been received from the three members of the Anglican Mission who were stationed at Gona when the Japanese invaded that part of Papua.

They state that they are “safe and well.”