The medicine quinine was for centuries the favoured drug against malaria. It is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, which was discovered in Peru where it was a traditional native remedy. There is a story (probably apocryphal in some respects) that the Viceroy of Peru, who arrived there from Spain in 1629, Don Luis Jeronimo de Cabrera y Bobadilla, Count of Chinchón, was persuaded to give to his wife, Doña Francisca Henriquez Ribera, Countess of Chinchón, the bark of the tree subsequently called cinchona to cure her fever, after he had been told of the plant by a Peruvian. The story was later depicted in three paintings at the hospital in Rome in which quinine was introduced to Europe. This painting is a copy of one of those paintings.