Quinine From N. Guinea

New Step In A Notable Story

N mid-March a consignment of quinine tablets was flown from [elbourne to Port Moresby, and, cnce to the Trobriand Islands, here Dr. Robert Black is conducting i experimental anti-malarial cam lign for the South Pacific Commis 3n.

Unimportant in itself, this news jm represented a milestone in New uinea agriculture and the first fruits 16 years of effort. Unfortunately e two men who would most have (predated the event are dead.

This quinine was extracted from e bark of cinchona trees which ire first introduced to New Guinea ’ the late George Murray (Director Agriculture between 1932 and >4l) and grown at a plantation tablished by the late R. F. Brechin Aiyura, 6,000 feet above sea level 1 the New Guinea highlands. Mur y “vanished in the smoke of ttle”—a victim of the Montevideo am incident — and Brechin died in : air accident not far from his pre dus plantation, in 1942.

The story of how George Murray quired his original seeds, by means ver fully disclosed, from the Dutch ist Indies in 1936, was told in M in November, 1946. After imerous attempts to acquire seeds Dm the Dutch by orthodox methods, urray eventually succeeded in hav g some seeds smuggled out of that untry (which had maintained a ;orous monopoly over the precious ant). In those days quinine was e only important anti-malarial drug.

Murray’s dream of cinchona antations to provide the needs of jw Guinea and the challenge to 2 Dutch came nearer reality with 2 first plantings in 1936—and the sat importance of the plantation is appreciated by General acArthur when, escaping from the lilippines after their fall to the panese, he brought a further con tinent of seed which the Army had quired from the East Indies to ex id the New Guinea plantings.

Thereafter, ANGAU employed out 20 Europeans and several ndred natives, tending the valuable mts in the war’s closing years.

The quinine is extracted from the rk of trees which are apparently ly now coming to maturity. fURRAY was apparently not the first man to introduce cin ona seeds to New Guinea. A ter from the Rev. Fr. Fastre, for :rly of Yule Island, published in

PIM, May, 1947, stated that as early as 1926 Father Fastre had, at the request of the Papuan Adminis tration, supplied a large quantity of cinchona seed from his own planta tion in the Mafulu district for for warding to the USSR. The Papuan trees must have been planted some years prior to 1926.

Whether those trees were of an unsuitable strain, or why the New Guinea Administration never took advantage of Father Fastre’s offer to supply seed (which he said was avail able) is not known.

The fact remains that George Murray was certainly responsible for the plantings which have led to actual

production of quinine on a commer cial scale, and given New Guinea the eventual assurance of its own supplies of the still valuable drug.