Process, Cost and Yield of the Production of Quinine Salts from Cinchona Bark in Japan before the Pacfic War

Quinine salts produced from cinchona bark mainly produced in Java were important anti-malarial drugs before and during the WW II.  The Japanese Cabinet Planning Board (Kikaku-in) tried to define a plan to manage the production and distribution of cinchona and quinine salts, and asked for the suggestions to pharmaceutical and trading companies before the invasion to Java.  Hoshi Pharmaceutical submitted a report to Kikaku-in (Okamoto Minoru Archive No. 137) on January 11, 1942.  The report described the process, cost and yield of quinine salts production in Japan.  This may provide us a concrete figure of quinine production from cinchona bark at that time.

Briefly, powder of cinchona bark was mixed with soda ash to liberate the quinine base, and further mixed with benzol for the extraction of quinine alkalod. The quinine was transferred to sulfuric acid and neutralized to precipitate with sodium carbonate.  Thus, obtained crude quinine sulfate was used for the production of different quinine salts. 

The yield to produce purified quinine sulfate, quinine chloride, or quinine ethyl-carbonate was 94.5%, 79.5%, or 79%, respectively.  The low yield to obtain quinine chloride from purified quinine sulfate (84.6%) might have been a major reason why Japanese Army changed their prescription from quinine chloride to quinine sulfate in August, 1939 (JACAR Ref. C07091274800).  The cost (JPY in 1920) to produce 1 kg of purified quinine sulfate was: bark (18.56 kg) 20.879, chemicals 5.373, labor 1.382, factory expenses 2.714, total 30.348.   (Supported by KAKEN 19H01227 and 22H00633)