Four hundred years ago, just such a miracle drug was found to cure malaria. In 1633, a fortunate event occurred. A Spanish priest was sent as a missionary to Peru. He wanted to minister to the native Indians there and convert them to his religion. While he was teaching, however, he learned something. The village healer – the only medical practitioner the people had ever known – was making a powder from the bark of the cinchona tree. He used this powder to cure malaria. The priest brought some of this miracle powder home to Europe, where malaria was a serious disease at the time. Europeans began using the bark to cure malaria. Soon Europeans implemented overseas searches for sources of the bark tree. After many years, scientists identified the ingredient in the tree bark that cured malaria. It was quinine. By 1827. quinine was commercially produced to became the primary treatment for malaria throughout the world. By the 1960s, however, quinine’s ability to kill the malaria parasite had declined because the parasite was becoming resistant to it.