Malaria is bad. Everyone can agree on that. But does that mean that the people who fix it automatically become good? Can we look past injustices that are created in the process of making a miracle drug? Can we turn a blind eye towards those who suffer needlessly to create a good that others reap the benefit from? Is being perceived as good superior to goodness itself?
Historically, the answer to those questions has been yes. And part of the reason why lies in a medicine that once the entire world scrambled to obtain, but now barely anyone recognizes at all: quinine. The anti-malarial properties of this substance, purified from the essence of cinchona trees, once spurred transcontinental travels, an imperial arms race of medicine, as well as the creation of the world’s first pharmaceutical industry. And in the process, this medicine of unquestionable worth to the world would be used to justify the colonialization of the same world it professed to heal.
When cinchona trees were first discovered by European powers in South America, they had already been in use for many years in indigenous medicine.[1] However, it did not take long for many nations to realize that the trees could be used to treat malaria as well, a scourge that was epidemic in many of their colonial holdings. With the extraction of purified quinine from cinchona trees, the race was on for European powers to establish their own production sites on a massive scale.
For a time, it seemed that Great Britain would win in this global marketplace competition. Great Britain, concerned with ruling their empire and curing their soldiers and bureaucrats, focused solely on producing as much quinine as possible in their Indian provinces. This led them to neglect their quinine’s quality and resulted in huge excesses. Desperation resulted amongst privately owned quinine planters who subsequently dumped their hauls on markets.[2] India’s low-quality quinine, rushed into production by imperialists eager to use it to cure their colonists, was scorned by every medicinal industry west of the Balkans. Great Britain failed to make itself a global producer of quinine. Instead, Great Britain’s failed policies made India one of the leading importers of quinine in the world.[3]
The task of producing quinine would thus fall to the Netherlands. Unlike Great Britain, which was still stuck in an old paradigm of territorial-based domination, the Netherlands understood what it took to get ahead in an increasingly capitalistic world: making a profit.
And yet, due to colonial India’s rock-bottom quinine prices, private Dutch quinine growers were unable to turn a profit. And so Dutch businessmen turned to the institution that has always provided for businessmen when the free market alone is insufficient: government. Dutch public officials and private quinine producers came together to launch the so-called Cinchona Establishment and signed the Quinine Agreement in 1913.[4] State and business came together to set quinine prices for the rest of the world, ensuring a steady flow and high quality in return for high prices. The Dutch East Indies soon came to dominate the world market, easily outpacing British India to become the foremost salesman of quinine in the world.
But the Dutch gained something just as valuable as money with their stranglehold on quinine production: public approval. Malaria’s terrible effects on human health were clear to all, its negative impact plain to see. Therefore, those who provided the medicine were seen as heroes, and of course, the Dutch capitalized on this imagery. Thus, while they sought to alleviate the ailments of those people who purchased their medicine, the Dutch simultaneously used their position to justify their treatment of their colonial servants who produced their quinine. As time went on and more scrutiny was applied to colonial rule worldwide, the Dutch managed to avoid a large degree of criticism due to the role their colonies played in quinine.[5] Quinine was too important.
And so, we come full circle to the beginning of this tale. To what degree are those providers of public goods exempt from public morals? To what degree are those who accept and purchase such goods complacent in the process used to create them? When our own lives are on the line, are we justified in neglecting the lives of others? When the Dutch brought the world quinine, was this deed good? Or merely good-ish?
[1] Layla Eplett, “Quinine and Empire,” Scientific American Blog Network, accessed March 8, 2021, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/food-matters/quinine-and-empire/.
[2] Andrew Goss, “Building the World’s Supply of Quinine: Dutch Colonialism and the Origins of a Global Pharmaceutical Industry,” Endeavour 38, no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2013.10.002.
[3] Rohan Deb Roy, “Quinine, Mosquitoes and Empire: Reassembling Malaria in British India, 1890–1910,” South Asian History & Culture 4, no. 1 (January 2013): 67, https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2012.750457.
[4] Goss, “Building the World’s Supply of Quinine,” 15.
[5] Goss, 17–18.