In 1861, in Bolivia, Charles Ledger, an Australian cinchona trader, persuaded an Indian to sell him cinchona tree seeds (which contain a high content of quinine, an antimalarial substance). Great Britain was uninterested in purchasing them, as past experience had shown that the plant did not grow in England. The Dutch, however, purchased them: half a kilo for $20. The species would become known as Chinchona ledgeriana. The Dutch planted the seeds in Java, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies). By 1930, more than 90% of the world’s quinine production would come from Java. Quinine was a strategically important substance at the time, as it was used by civilians as well as the military, and also considering that much of the world was affected by malaria at the time, including Great Britain and Scandinavia, and therefore not just tropical countries. During World War II, the Japanese conquest of Java caused considerable concern among the Allies, who needed quinine for their troops in the field. An American mission from the Smithsonian Institution procured tons of it in Peru, but found no trace of the Chinchona ledgeriana species, the most productive of all.
