Putting Down Roots: The Reception of New World Medicinal Plants in Early Modern Germany, 1492-1648
by Taylor, Gail Marlow, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, 2014, 323 pages; 3627219
http://gradworks.umi.com/36/27/3627219.html
Abstract:In the course of the sixteenth century, merchants introduced new and unfamiliar medicinal plants from the New World into Germany at a time of religious, political, and cultural change. Their reception was by no means assured. Although six of these plants gained a secure presence in German medicine, historians have neither studied them as a group nor analyzed the conditions which made this acceptance possible. Yet pharmacopoeias listed them as legitimate medicines, price lists specified how much apothecaries could charge for them, and medical books discussed their benefits for the relief of everyday ailments. This study takes a global view of this transition from tropical plant to European medicine and of the conditions of profitability, familiarity, and legitimacy which made new medicines acceptable.
This analysis shows how six unknown medicinal plants from the New World became widely accepted because of contemporary changes in German society: plants were becoming increasingly important in medicine, German merchants were deeply involved in the profitable medical trade, and civic reformers were committed to regulation of trades and products. A growing body of German literature about the New World gave the new plants context, while an expanding network of correspondents and contacts kept German physicians and apothecaries informed about changes in medicine. While the initial and ongoing presence of these plants in official pharmacy documents gives concrete evidence of their acceptance in the medical establishment, their reception resulted from a broader range of economic, cultural, and political factors in early modern Germany.
by Taylor, Gail Marlow, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, 2014, 323 pages; 3627219
Abstract:In the course of the sixteenth century, merchants introduced new and unfamiliar medicinal plants from the New World into Germany at a time of religious, political, and cultural change. Their reception was by no means assured. Although six of these plants gained a secure presence in German medicine, historians have neither studied them as a group nor analyzed the conditions which made this acceptance possible. Yet pharmacopoeias listed them as legitimate medicines, price lists specified how much apothecaries could charge for them, and medical books discussed their benefits for the relief of everyday ailments. This study takes a global view of this transition from tropical plant to European medicine and of the conditions of profitability, familiarity, and legitimacy which made new medicines acceptable.
This analysis shows how six unknown medicinal plants from the New World became widely accepted because of contemporary changes in German society: plants were becoming increasingly important in medicine, German merchants were deeply involved in the profitable medical trade, and civic reformers were committed to regulation of trades and products. A growing body of German literature about the New World gave the new plants context, while an expanding network of correspondents and contacts kept German physicians and apothecaries informed about changes in medicine. While the initial and ongoing presence of these plants in official pharmacy documents gives concrete evidence of their acceptance in the medical establishment, their reception resulted from a broader range of economic, cultural, and political factors in early modern Germany.
