Medicines from the Rainforest

About 1/4 of all the medicines we use come from rainforest plants


                                                    

•  Curare comes from a tropical vine, and is used as an anesthetic and to relax muscles during surgery. 

• Quinine, from the cinchona tree, is used to treat malaria.

•  A person with lymphocytic leukemia has a 99% chance that the disease will go into remission because of the rosy periwinkle.