The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Chinchona or Quinine

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. I want to start out by thanking you for all your prayers and well wishes for my dental surgery last week. It turned out to be a bit more involved than we thought, but there was a lot of infection down in the jaw. It was a mess. But it went smoothly. I got through it and I'm mostly recovered now.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Still be a while before I can eat anything crunchy or a nice steak which I've been craving and or bread even. You know crumbs get down to that open gum and really I can't eat bread, cake or cookie or anything like that. I love a pizza right now too. But of course I can't do that for a while. Maybe you know another week so I just got to put up with it for another week but let's get into our herb of the week and this one is really interesting. This is not one you're going to grow yourself unless you live in South America. It's Chinchona but it's one of the most important herbs of the last few hundred years. The the Chinchona is where we get quinine and it was discovered in Peru, well at least in Western medicine. Really there's a little bit of controversy, well there always has been really surrounding this herb. No one

Starting point is 00:01:21 really knows how, excuse me, how it was discovered. A very good sip of water here. Boy, I'm catching my throat all of a sudden. We know that the Spanish colonized Peru and that the Jesuits discovery of Chinchona was seemingly made independent from the native knowledge of the herbs. According to legend, a branch dropped into a pool of water and the monks and priests, whatever, mostly monks, discovered that it turned the water very bitter. Now we don't know if the natives of Peru had used Chinchona before then as an anti-malarial

Starting point is 00:02:18 or anti- or for settling the stomach or for reducing fevers, all its many uses. But we know that 350 years ago, 500 years ago, the Jesuits discovered the cinchona, they discovered the quinine, and it became hugely popular throughout Europe. It became one of the biggest exports from South America. I'll just read a little passage here. It says, the Western history of Chinchona bark dates back more than 350 years to circa 1650. The physician Sebastiano Bado declared that the bark

Starting point is 00:03:03 had proved more precious to mankind than all the gold and silver that the Spaniards had obtained from South America. In the 18th century, an Italian professor of medicine, Bernardino Ramazzini, I guess, said that the introduction of the Peruvian bark, as it was called, would be of the same importance to medicine as the discovery of gunpowder was to war. It was known as the Jesuits bark and for that reason the the English were specifically slow to use it. Protestant England did not want to use the Jesuit's bark, no matter how potent and powerful it was, until there was a big outbreak of malaria and they had no choice.

Starting point is 00:03:53 But they really resented using a Catholic herb, as if an herb could be Catholic or Protestant. Well, a lot of controversy was surrounded it. In Protestant New England, they did not want to use the Jesuits bark as it was called. It had to be rebranded, essentially. I mean, it was fine in Spain and Italy and France and all the Catholic countries of Europe. But in England and parts of Germany and New England in the United States people just would not use it if it had the name Jesuit on it. Go figure. So anyway, I mean the writings of the herbalists and doctors of the time were really bigoted toward Catholicism. I mean really I mean

Starting point is 00:04:44 I think I have a quote somewhere here, maybe we'll get to it eventually, but they had to rebrand it as either Peruvian bark or cinchona, but eventually they settled on the name of quinine, and then it became very much associated with the English because quinine is a bittering agent in tonic water. And the classic gin and tonic is the classic English cocktail. So when it was sold under another name, people felt real happy using it. I would get away from the history of it because it really is, it's a fascinating history. Malaria was specifically

Starting point is 00:05:28 bad and it still is to this day, a virus contracted through mosquitoes and when the English really began to colonize the Americas, well from the Caribbean islands up into North America, you know, from, you know, America way up to Canada. Of course, we have tons of mosquitoes and really sometimes the further north the worse mosquitoes can be, but they're certainly bad anywhere it's coastal. And malaria was killing people. I mean, more than likely Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony failed to survive because of infections due to mosquitoes. They also had a big problem with starvation.

Starting point is 00:06:12 They were English colonists and well some Scots, Irish and prisoners that said you know I'd rather go to the new world than stay in prison and they made deals. But anyway, they settled in the coast of North Carolina and had horrible time with malaria and they didn't know how to live off the land. And their English biases toward the plants and such that grew in America America they were like literally starving to death in one of the most abundant food regions of the world if I go down to the coast of North Carolina, I Mean all I do is go out and fish and forage and I mean to me It's almost impossible to figure out how someone wouldn't have enough food to eat because it's growing everywhere

Starting point is 00:07:02 The actual to this day the main problem is not lack of food it's lack of well of course fresh water brackish water is always an issue but they were you know they were on a creek so they had good water. They just didn't know what plants were poisonous and not and apparently they did get along pretty well with... Was it the Croatan tribe? Or was that the one that attacked them? I cannot remember. But they, you know... The English bias toward trying native foods was one of the reasons. But the main reason was the mosquitoes.

Starting point is 00:07:39 And probably ticks and certainly chiggers or red bugs, whatever you want to call them, and noceums, which are horrible. But yeah, Sir Walter Ralli himself contracted malaria. And when he later fell afoul of the British royalty, apparently he may have had an affair with somebody's wife and he was beheaded. He knew the exact hour, the exact moment, to the minute when his next fever was going to come on and requested that he be

Starting point is 00:08:12 beheaded before he got that fever and also that they protect his beard. He was very proud of his beard. He had a good beard. What can you say? I like my beard too but I don't think it would be my primary concern if I was going to get my head cut off. Anyway, let's get into the medicinals. And Ms. Grieve, right in the 1930s, said that the taste is astringent and it is, and strongly bitter, it is febrifuge. That means it lowers fevers. It helps break a fever, essentially. It's tonic and astringent, valuable for influenza, neuralgia, and debility. But large and two constant doses must be avoided as they produce headache, giddiness, by which she means dizziness, and deafness.

Starting point is 00:08:59 That's actually very true. And people didn't know that in the beginning. They thought they could take as much as they wanted. They started getting ringing in the ears, like tinnitus, the way we say it in the South. I guess up North they say tinnitus, which is just weird. They also say diabetes or something instead of diabetes. We just pronounce things the way they're spelled in the South. If there's a vowel, you pronounce it.

Starting point is 00:09:22 I don't get Yankees to start with. Don't get me started, y'all. But anyway, the liquid extract is useful as a cure for drunkenness. The bitterness will actually stimulate the liver and it will sober up a person who's drunk. There is an old bartender's trick that if you've got somebody in the bar, they're falling down drunk, give them a little shot glass full of Agnostura bitters. Agnostura was originally made from quinine, from the Chinchona bark.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Apparently it's not anymore, but it has a lot of gentian in it. It's essentially gentian citrus bitters with a little vanilla. It's just delicious, I think. But that stimulates the liver and it's also sort of a shock to the nervous system to have something that bitter and it will sober a person up very quickly. No, they're not going to stay sober for long, but it will get them on their feet and out the bar and bring them to their senses for a little while. And it does stimulate the liver, so it does process some of that alcohol. They're going to be improved by it any way you look at it. So she says the powdered bark is often used in tooth powders owing to its astringency,

Starting point is 00:10:35 but not much used internally except as a bitter wine. It creates a sensation of warmth, but sometimes causes gastric irritation or intestinal irritation. Chinchona and decoction is useful as a gargle and as a good throat astringent. Now chinchona was absolutely essential in early America. As I said, malaria plagued the colonies, especially in the South. And you know, Jamestown, Virginia was absolutely crippled by various outbreaks of malaria, yellow fever, you name it. And that was the real center of the biggest port in the American South. It was to the South what New York was to, you know, New

Starting point is 00:11:19 England. And New York, of course, also had an issue with malaria. I mean, it was really bad. And were it not for the Peruvian bark or the Jesuits bark, as they couldn't call it, if they wanted to mark it in America, America would not exist as it did. The colonies formed. There probably would not have been enough people here to become independent and find a revolution. I mean we literally owe a couple of Jesuit monks in Peru with the founding of our nation.

Starting point is 00:11:54 It's literally that important. Now this is unfortunately the case. It was believed at the time that Africans were immune to malaria well they weren't but they did have seemed to have some more tolerance usually didn't get a sick that people began actually to import more slaves because when the white people were sick the black people could still work you know they had had malaria in Africa for quite a while and they do have seem to have built up a little bit more tolerance so it wasn't hitting them

Starting point is 00:12:32 quite as hard. But yeah, that was a myth and you know, it was pretty bad for folks. But also very important because it didn't hit hit the black folks as hard, they would not only continue to work, but they would care for the white people who were sick. And a lot of them actually earned their freedom that way. Some of the first freed men in America were former slaves that were heroic during the malaria and yellow fever epidemics. Some of them became apprentices under doctors and apothecas.

Starting point is 00:13:11 And really that's, you know, actually the first, let me just say this, the first slave bought and sold in America, not imported from Africa, but sold from one American to another was actually by a black slave owner. That black slave owner had essentially earned his freedom. So boy, it gets murky there and a lot of controversy, but actually the first slave sold domestically off of a plantation in the United States was sold by a black man. And that doesn't get in the history books. But yeah, I mean, we could talk about this for a long time. It's a very...the history of the...the real history of the United States is quite less politically correct

Starting point is 00:14:03 than what is taught in schools and portrayed on television actually. So anyway, let's get on with it again. So the importation of Peruvian barks, it was called at that point, and its prescription by the pharmacists were absolutely essential and we would not have any settlements certainly south of Pennsylvania had it not been for the Jesuit spark so called. And of course this was well known in the 1800s so during the Civil War the first thing the North tried to do was blockade all the ports in the south so they couldn't get quinine believing that what the Union Army couldn't accomplish, the mosquitoes would.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Fortunately for me and many here in the South who had the temerity to think that we formed a Union willingly and retained the right to leave that Union whenever we saw fit, declaring that caused the North to march in, start burning homes, raping women, burning fields, and starving everybody to death. Our ancestors found quinine substitutes, and those quinine substitutes included the dogwood and tulip poplar, which kept us alive despite Sherman's army burning churches and farms and houses and stealing everybody's silverware and raping the women and killing the children and committing war crimes for which Lincoln and Grant are now considered heroes.

Starting point is 00:15:32 Don't get me started on that either. So there was also a plant called wild quinine, which is in the same family as boneset and Joe Pyeweed. That was introduced to the colonists and early Americans by the Eastern tribes. The Cherokee made use of it, the Penobscot, the Iroquois, they were all familiar with that. And Joe Pie was either a Native American or a medicine show producer, a cowboy, you know, that kind of went around and did the medicine shows with the Indians on, you know, like Wild West shows, Wild Bill Hillcock type stuff, and they used the members of this plant, the

Starting point is 00:16:18 Eupatoriums, and there's another one, it doesn't matter, but yeah, Wild Quine Eye and Boneset, Joe Pyeweed were also very useful, especially for yellow fever. So the Thompsonians made big use of Chinchona, but here's a quote. This is one I was gonna tell you because apparently Chinchona could cure fevers, but not anti-Catholic bigotry. In fact, Dr. Thompson wrote,

Starting point is 00:16:45 the genuine Peruvian bark is one of the most effective tonics ever employed for the cure of intermittent fever or ague. It may be used as a general tonic in all cases where the use of this class of medicine is indicated. As a general rule, powerful tonic should not be employed in the first stages of disease attended with fever and a dry-coated tongue. Under these circumstances, bitters, unless combined with a large portion of capsicum, that's cayenne pepper, would repress rather than promote the secretions and aggravate the disease. When by the free use of capsicum and other appropriate remedies, the

Starting point is 00:17:21 secretions are restored, the tongue clean, and the skin warm and disposed to perspiration. Then Peruvian bark or other tonics may be employed with advantage. Peruvian bark is rendered more efficient as a tonic by combining it with Virginia snake root, cloves, and capsicum. I frequently mix equal parts of Peruvian bark and spice bitters and have found a good preparation. That's a lot like Agnes Shura, by the way. A tea made of equal parts of Peruvian bark and spice bitters and have found a good preparation. That's a lot like Agnes Shura, by the way. A team made of equal parts of Peruvian bark and licorice root is a good remedy for colic and infants, more especially whether spells of colic are observed to come on periodically. It's good to know

Starting point is 00:17:57 because you can't combine licorice with ginchin, for instance. But he goes on to say, the title Jesuit's bark has been implied to the Peruvian bark from the circumstance of the Jesuits having chief control of the sale of this article drug. He doesn't mention they discovered it, just that they had chief control of the marketing. Into its use in Europe about 1640 is not known whether they really did introduce it into Europe, but if they did it is about the only good thing they ever did. Well, one might think operating schools and orphanages and publishing Bibles and encouraging

Starting point is 00:18:33 literacy and teaching people to read the Bible, that might have been a good thing too, but obviously Dr. Thompson, the Presbyterian, would not admit to that. And now, actually, the Jesuits have a major issue having been corrupted by communists in the 1900s. Jesuits mean society of Jesus. And in, just say, the 1400s, these were the most holy people in the face of the earth. By the 1900s, as in every institution, communism had crept in. Anywhere you got a college, you go there was anywhere and Presbyterian universities, my gosh, I can't imagine what

Starting point is 00:19:17 Dr. Thompson would say about them now. Because in North Carolina, the Presbyterian universities have been the main source of spreading communism and socialism and progressivism, and also, well, the Democrat Party and the Ku Klux Klan and the Masonic Order. They're all intertwined in North Carolina. When I was a kid, you'd go into Scotland County, and this was true also up toward Benson, but you go into Scotland County, there's a big billboard and had a clansman in full, you know, hood and burning crosses on a horse with the St. Andrew's Cross. That's the Presbyterian and clan symbol. You know, it's absolutely disgusting that they use the St. Andrew's Cross, which is a, you know, Christian symbol. And it said, the Knights of the Ku Klux

Starting point is 00:20:12 Klan and the Democrat Party of North Carolina welcome you. Well, actually, this is of Scotland County. The one up at Benson said, North Carolina, please remember to obey our laws. And the Klan please remember to obey our laws. And the Klan was essentially the militant wing of the Masonic Order, all of which controlled politics, were purely Democrat, and ran and funded the Presbyterian colleges in North Carolina, such as St. Andrews down in Scotland County, or Lees-McRae up in Avery County where I live.

Starting point is 00:20:45 And they ran politics and they were the militant wing of the Democrat Party and you know that's why it was illegal to be Catholic in North Carolina until after the Civil War. It was you know we had a few, going back, I guess, to about 1900, we had a few synagogues. They tolerated Jews, but even in my lifetime, if you put out a Catholic symbol of any kind in your yard, you could't get all mortgages, jobs. You know, if you wanted to advance, you had to join.

Starting point is 00:21:34 You had to join up. And yeah, I mean, things have changed a lot in the past 20 years because, I mean, even in the 90s, you you know they were still burning people's houses down if they found out you were Catholic. But anyway let's go back to quinine. Quinine isolate was isolated from Chinchona in the 1820s. The isolated medicine was prescribed in pill form for malaria and similar viruses. Unfortunately quinine is no longer recommended against malaria. They say that malaria has become resistant to quinine. Not only has the

Starting point is 00:22:10 virus mutated to become resistant, but in large doses it can have negative effects. And when you isolate it and put a capsule that's more likely to happen, probably the safest way is to drink tonic water. Just make sure it's not a tonic water that has a lot of sugar in it or aspartame, whatever, fake sugar, that's even worse for you than sugar. The tonic water has low levels of quinine.

Starting point is 00:22:42 Yeah, it's really good for most any viral fever. Now you may remember that quinine specifically became popular again during the COVID epidemic. And yes, it was showed very good efficacy. But of course, modern medicine would not admit, our scientists would not admit that quinine helped with COVID any more than they would hydroxychloroquine or all whatever that other one is. You're all probably shouting it right now because everybody now knows about those two drugs that were denigrated and called horse paste and all that by the idiots on television parroting the pharmaceutical industry's propaganda. But we now know that they're really good and really useful for a lot of things. So scientists have never disproved the efficacy of quinine in viral fevers and its antiviral properties as well. So

Starting point is 00:23:42 because but they've never proven it in recent years either because no profit in it. So I'll just leave it to every others to make their health choices and I'm frankly I think I'm gonna go pour myself a either a gin and tonic or a vodka tonic depending on what I got in the cabinet. It's hot as blazes out there it's almost 100 degrees and a nice cool gin and tonic with a slice of lime or lemon on a hot afternoon there's there really few things more pleasant than that and that's what it was made for besides the mosquitoes are as thick as smoke out there right now as hot and humid as it is anyway remember that when you do have your gin and tonic or your vodka tonic or however you want to use your

Starting point is 00:24:28 tonic water, even if it's just plain, give a toast. And traditionally when you raise a toast you say to your health or any of the many toasts in many languages that mean the same thing. Toasting originated as you would clink glasses and actually a little of each person's drink was supposed to fall into the other person's glass. Kind of slosh into it and it was to protect against poisoning. Well then it led to fellowship and people wishing other people good health. It's still nice to be social and wish each other good health. Maybe we ought to do that more.

Starting point is 00:25:06 We probably have a culture or society that got along a little bit better. You know, man, in some regards things have improved a little bit. You know, I can wear a crucifix without fear of being run off the road or killed. That was not actually the case 20 years ago. But other things have gotten somewhat worse. I was in a store yesterday and a black guy in front of me, probably about my age, maybe five years younger than me, literally had his pants below his butt with his ass hanging out. And acting, you know, thuggish and everything, and everybody, nobody said a word about it. Nobody said a word about it till he left,

Starting point is 00:25:51 and everybody was offended by it. And it hit me how far our society has gone downhill, that people are afraid to even speak for fear of being called racist, for fear of being called racist, for fear of being attacked. And our social norms are just out the window. I mean, and not just a black thing with his ass hanging out. I mean, you see these 300 pound white women in their yoga pants at the grocery store and it's just like, oh my gosh. When did this become acceptable? I mean, they're not wearing any underwear either. That's for sure.

Starting point is 00:26:28 When did this...and sweat marks...I mean...ugh. When did this become acceptable? You know, when I was a kid, yeah, 20 years ago, I probably would have gotten lynched for being a Catholic. At least 30 years ago. But you wouldn't have seen that. That was, I mean, you know, first of all, the black guy would have been arrested for indecent exposure as he should be if we still enforce laws and had common sense. And the white woman would have been shamed by other white women into dressing appropriately and probably not even allowed into the

Starting point is 00:27:11 grocery store. I mean literally the manager would have said, ma'am you have to go put on some decent clothes. You're you know obscene and disgusting and we don't want you in our store. You know they used to have signs said no shirt, no shoes, no service. How about no pants, no service? I think we could enforce that one. Maybe if we still had standards. No. Hey, we've got some pretty classy folks in the White House now.

Starting point is 00:27:39 Suits and nice dresses and, you know, maybe people will start getting the idea that there is actually an appropriate way to dress. But I guess I'm not going to hold my breath. In this heat, I guess I really shouldn't blame anybody for what they wear. But it was also 100 degrees yesterday and he's wearing sweatpants with his ass hanging out. There's no excuse for that. A pair of shorts, hey, go for it. Pull them up. But anyway.

Starting point is 00:28:06 And of course, how that became embraced in our culture, I mean, that used to be prison style, where they don't have belts, and it was an invitation that was saying, you know, you were homosexual and you were soliciting. So I don't know why all these black guys wanna look like a, you know, gay prostitute in jail. But I don't get rap and hip hop either. To me, that's not even music. I think it's horrible. Actually, I think rap and hip hop,

Starting point is 00:28:41 whatever the difference is, I don't even know, has been the most negative influence on American culture, probably of all time. It has degraded our culture worse and more quickly than anything that is, I mean, literally. And people say, oh, there's good, I mean, I know a guy who's a Christian rapper and I'm like dude I'm not listening to your music. Why not? I'm like it's not music. In order to be music you have to have both rhythm and melody.

Starting point is 00:29:11 You have no melody. You have rhythm only. That's not music. That may be, I mean whatever. It's not music. It's degrading to the human mind and soul to listen to that garbage no matter what your lyrics are. But each to his own. Each to his own. I know that you say the same thing about rock and roll but hey rock and roll didn't do this to our culture. Not what

Starting point is 00:29:36 rap has. And I mean I love some you know good old you know late 70s early 80s punk rock. I love my you know my favorite rock band of all time is probably Motorhead or the Velvet Underground. I mean, I have really kind of hardcore taste in rock music. And you could say that was a negative influence as compared to like, you know, Glenn Miller or something. And maybe it was, but it was also, you know, fun music for kids that didn't really do any harm. Rap has just degraded and destroyed our culture. It has glorified violence and and it's just horrible. I mean it's just horrible. That stuff needs to be purged

Starting point is 00:30:17 from our society but nobody has the moral authority to do it anymore. You know we used to at least have people who would stand up for what was right. From ministers to politicians to your clubs in a community, they would stand up for what was right and would say, we have standards and we're going to enforce them, for better or worse sometimes. But yeah, bad stuff. Bad stuff. I don't have kids, but if I did, they wouldn't be allowed to listen to that garbage. And I mean, seriously, if they had a friend that

Starting point is 00:30:53 was listening to it, I'd say, you don't associate with that person anymore. Not in our family. We don't do that. And if they got a problem with it, fine. They get grounded. I mean, I was disciplined as a kid. As a father, I would discipline my kids. You know, some people don't care enough. Well, some people don't care enough to even stay married to their wives and raise their own kids. You know, what are you gonna do? That's a problem herbal medicine cannot fix. The decay and decline of our culture and society. And yeah, what are the two worst things to happen? Divorce and rap music, in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:31:31 Divorce destroys the family, divorce destroys children, and rap music finishes the job. I'm not even going to call it... Why did I say music? It's not music. It turns normal people into thugs and criminals and degrades the human person to that, to a status lower than a dog. I like dogs. I don't like thugs. Anyway, y'all have a great week. I try to stay cool with this heat. You know, I'm realizing now most of my gear that I take with me into

Starting point is 00:32:05 the woods because I live in the mountains is for cold weather. I really don't have a lot of gear to help me survive in hot weather. I'm going to have to think that one through. I'm really going to have to think that one through because it's pretty miserable in the woods right now. I mean, even to go fishing, unless I can get about, you know, at least knee deep in a trout creek, a river. That's going to be more like a river. Too hot to fish as the song goes. Yeah, we've got to figure out some hot weather gear, ways to stay cool. And anyway, otherwise, just do what our ancestors did and when it gets this hot, work in the morning, sleep in the afternoon, work in the evening

Starting point is 00:32:47 and into the night. That's how you survive in the South. You know, people had sleeping porches. And you know, they'd sleep on this porch. It would be screened from mosquitoes if possible. Or it was on a second story. So it would be up above where most of the mosquitoes were and they'd sleep outside and they'd work until about you know 11 o'clock get up really early work until about 11 o'clock so from before

Starting point is 00:33:13 dawn to 11 come in take a nap eat go back out really at sunset and get a few more hours work done and work late into the night And that's how they survived if they survived you know my great great grandfather Was went out one hot summer day like this to work in the fields came in at about 11 noon whatever sat on the porch gonna cool off have lunch take a little nap maybe and Drop dead of a heatstroke. So it's darn hot. Be careful out there. Heat strokes are no joke. I've had two of them.

Starting point is 00:33:49 They are no joke. And each one you have makes it more likely you're gonna have another. Anyway, y'all, have a good one. And thanks again for your thoughts and prayers. I really appreciate it. I'll talk to you next week. The information in this podcast is not intended

Starting point is 00:34:03 to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I

Starting point is 00:34:28 can tell you my own experience and if I believe in herbs help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

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The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Chinchona or Quinine

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