Manuel Incra Mamani

Manuel Incra Mamani was a Bolivian Incan cascarillero (bark and seed hunter) who found a cinchona tree that had a higher proportion of quinine than most others.[1] It went into commercial cultivation, providing most of the world's quinine.

Black and white photograph of Santiago, the son of Manuel Incra Mamari.

Life and work

Mamani was an experienced bark and seed collector, and had worked for Charles Ledger since 1843.[2] He was able to identify 29 different sorts of cinchona trees.[3]

Mamani waited through four years of unsuitable weather (frosts destroyed the seeds from the high-quinine plants), and gave offerings to mountain spirits, in order to obtain a sample of seed from the high-quinine cinchona in 1865.[2][4][5] The seeds that Mamani provided were sent to Ledger's brother, George, who then sold them to the Dutch government, who then cultivated plants in Java.[6]

The plant that Mamani collected seed from was later named Cinchona ledgeriana. He is noted only as a "native" in some accounts of its finding and cultivation.[7]

Local people disapproved of Mamani helping Ledger.[8]

Death

In 1871, whilst on a seed-collecting trip, Mamani was arrested, imprisoned and beaten.[9] Some have suggested that this was likely because of his providing seeds to foreigners.[3][8] Others suggest it was because he refused to identify his employer.[10] He subsequently died of his injuries.[8]

References
  1. Baird, J. Kevin (2004-04-01). "The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World". The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 70 (4): 457–458. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.2004.70.457.
  2. Holland, J. H. (1932). "Ledger Bark and Red Bark". Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). 1932 (1): 1–17. doi:10.2307/4107725. ISSN 0366-4457. JSTOR 4107725.
  3. Bland, John (1988). "He gave quinine to the world" (PDF). World Health – via World Health Organisation.
  4. Canales, Nataly Allasi (7 April 2022). "Hunting lost plants in botanical collections". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  5. Honigsbaum, Mark (2005). The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-42180-9.
  6. "Drinkable bark that lost its touch". Times Higher Education (THE). 2002-01-18. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  7. Zhu, Lihua (2018-06-27). "Products of the Empire: Cinchona: a short history". www.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  8. "The weird and wonderful world of the plant hunters - part 4: Quinine, the cinchona tree and empires in competition". Trees for Cities. 2 April 2020. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  9. Chatterjee, Sria (11 March 2021). "The Long Shadow Of Colonial Science". Noema.
  10. Lee, M.R. (2002). "Plants Against Malaria, Part 1: Cinchona or the Peruvian Bark" (PDF). J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 32 (3): 189–196. PMID 12434796.
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