Quinine sulphate. This 19th century bottle holds quinine sulphate, an ingested tonic used to prevent malaria. Large scale use of quinine as a prophylactic started around 1850. However, it had been used as early as 1631 by inhabitants of Rome, where malaria was endemic to the swamps around the city at the time. Quinine originates from the bark of Cinchona trees that are native to South America. Indigenous peoples called this bark insQuinains and would grind it up into a type of wine.