The story of quinine

Have you ever heard of quinine? 你听说过，“奎宁”（也叫金鸡纳霜）吗？ It is one of many famous medicines discovered here in the Amazon rainforest. Let’s find out more about it. 奎宁，是在亚马逊雨林发现的众多知名药物之一。今天，一起去发现发现关于奎宁的历史。 Quinine is used to cure malaria, a very dangerous disease that is spread by mosquitoes. It is made from the bark of the Cinchona tree. 奎宁是用来治疗疟疾—一种非常危险的由蚊子传播的疾病的药物，由金鸡纳树的树皮制成。 The tree is named after the Countess of Chinchon from Peru. In 1630 she was very sick with malaria and had a high fever. Her doctor gave her a drink made from Cinchona and she got better. 这种树是以驻秘鲁总督夫人安娜•辛可伯爵夫人的名字命名的。在1630年，伯爵夫人患上疟疾且高烧不退。但喝了一剂私人医生用奎宁树皮做的饮料，不多久，病情便有了好转。 People in Europe heard about this medicine and then came to the rainforest to collect the plant. 生活在欧洲大陆的人们听说了这种药之后，都来到雨林收集这种植物。 It was first called quinine in 1820 by two French scientists, Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Caventou, who made the first modern medicine from the tree bark. 1820年，两个开创用树皮做现代药物的先河的法国科学家，佩雷蒂尔先生和卡文多先生，将这种植物命名作 “奎宁”，而这，也是奎宁第一次有了自己的名字。 For almost three hundred years quinine was used to cure malaria as well as many other dangerous illnesses. 近三百年来，奎宁都被用作来治疗疟疾和很多其他危险的疾病。 In 1944 scientists made the first artificial quinine. 1944年，科学家们首次制出人造奎宁。 But natural quinine is now very important again because many kinds of malaria cannot be cured using modern drugs anymore. 但人造药物对很多疟疾开始不再起作用了，所以现在，自然奎宁又开始变得十分重要。 So remember, we must protect our rainforests because maybe other important medicines will be found. 所以，大家记住了，我们必须保护雨林，因为以后可能又会找到其他重要的药物也说不定。