East meets West: how China almost cured malaria

With the isolation of quinine from Cinchona in 1820, an ancient herbal cure was transformed into a chemical drug. This was the inspiration for a new scientific discipline – ethnopharmacology – as Western scientists began to reinvent traditional herbal cures by extracting their active principles to make new and profitable drugs. The Chinese government may claim many such success stories as their own, but such triumphant narratives only reveal part of the story. The drawn-out hunt for the active principle of another anti-malarial herb, changshan, or Dichroa febrifuga, offers a more nuanced narrative that captures the complex interplay between traditional Chinese and Western medicine.