The Hidden History of a Famous Drug: Tracing the Medical and Public Acculturation of Peruvian Bark in Early Modern Western Europe (c. 1650-1720)
| Autor: | Klein, Wouter, Pieters, Toine, Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, History of pharmacy and allied sciences, Sub History and Philosophy of Science, Sub Pharmacoepidemiology |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, History of pharmacy and allied sciences, Sub History and Philosophy of Science, Sub Pharmacoepidemiology |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
History
media_common.quotation_subject Cinchona Alkaloids History 18th Century 060104 history History 17th Century Antimalarials Medicine Humans 0601 history and archaeology Narrative Cinchona Social science media_common SCI and SSCI Journals business.industry Medical practice 06 humanities and the arts Legend Peruvian Bark Acculturation Malaria Europe 060105 history of science technology & medicine Western europe Law Geriatrics and Gerontology Early modern Europe business Phytotherapy |
| Zdroj: | Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 71(4), 400. Oxford University Press |
| ISSN: | 0022-5045 |
| Popis: | The history of the introduction of exotic therapeutic drugs in early modern Europe is usually rife with legend and obscurity and Peruvian bark is a case in point. The famous antimalarial drug entered the European medical market around 1640, yet it took decades before the bark was firmly established in pharmaceutical practice. This article argues that the history of Peruvian bark can only be understood as the interplay of its trajectories in science, commerce, and society. Modern research has mostly focused on the first of these, largely due to the abundance of medico-historical data. While appreciating these findings, this article proposes to integrate the medical trajectory in a richer narrative, by drawing particular attention to the acculturation of the bark in commerce and society. Although the evidence we have for these two trajectories is still sketchy and disproportionate, it can nevertheless help us to make sense of sources that have not yet been an obvious focus of research. Starting from an apparently isolated occurrence of the drug in a letter, this article focuses on Paris as the location where medical and public appreciation of the bark took shape, by exploring several contexts of knowledge circulation and medical practice there. These contexts provide a new window on the early circulation of knowledge of the bark, at a time when its eventual acceptance was by no means certain. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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