LETTER TO SEBASTIAN LÓPEZ RUIZ: Complaint about quinine

Abstract

Sebastián José Lopéz Ruiz was a botanist from Neogranadino. In this epistle, Alexander von Humboldt leaves evidence of the quarrel that López Ruiz had with José Celestino Bruno Mutis y Bosio, doctor and botanist from Cadiz, because both claimed the discovery of cinchona (or Cinchona officinalis). At that time, it was discovered that the native peoples used this plant as a medicine. It soon gained fame in the Old World for treating fever and other epidemic diseases such as malaria.