True rhubarb? Trading Eurasian botanical and medical knowledge in the eighteenth century

Journal of Global History

Volume 11, Issue 1, 8 February 2016, Pages 3-23

  (Review)

Romaniello, M.P. 

 

Department of History, University of Hawai'i, 2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki, A203, Honolulu, HI, United States 

View references (129)

Abstract

Early modern Russia sat at the intersection of Eurasian trade networks, which allowed both commodities and information to move from east to west and north to south. Rhubarb exported from China had held a prominent position in Western medical treatments since the classical era, but improved transportation and communication between Europe and Asia through Russia enabled the growth of the medicinal rhubarb trade to unexpected heights after 1760. Earlier studies of rhubarb have focused on European interests in uncovering 'true' medicinal rhubarb, but this article will situate the plant as a part of the broader process of scientific exchange across Eurasia. Russia's unique position in Eurasia ultimately allowed its specialists to contribute to the development of Western science through the importation of information from Asia and its own expeditions in Siberia, Russia's internal 'Asian' territory. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016.

Author keywords

bioprospecting; botany; drug trade; knowledge networks; medicine; rhubarb

ISSN: 17400228Source Type: Journal Original language: English

DOI: 10.1017/S1740022815000327Document Type: Review

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

References (129)

View in search results format

• Page
 
• • Export |
  • Print |
  • E-mail |
  • Create bibliography

• 
  1

  Huguet-Termes, T.

  New world materia medica in spanish renaissance medicine: From scholarly reception to practical impact
  (2001) Medical History, 45 (3), pp. 359-376. Cited 19 times.
  
• 
  2

  Schiebinger, L.
  Prospecting for drugs: European naturalists in the West Indies
  (2007) Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World, pp. 119-133. Cited 14 times.
  Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan, eds., Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 302-7
  

  •  
• 
  3

  Chakrabarti, P.
  (2010) Materials and Medicine: Trade, Conquest and Therapeutics in the Eighteenth Century. Cited 19 times.
  Manchester: Manchester University Press
  

  •  
• 
  4

  Wallis, P.

  Exotic drugs and english medicine: England's drug trade, c. 1550-c. 1800
  (2012) Social History of Medicine, 25 (1), pp. 20-46. Cited 8 times.
  doi: 10.1093/shm/hkr055
  
• 
  5

  the special issue of Social History of Medicine, 26, 3, 2013, on 'Mobilising medicine: trade and healing in the early modern Atlantic world';
  

  •  
• 
  6

  Županov, I.G., Xavier, A.B.

  Quest for permanence in the tropics: Portuguese bioprospecting in Asia (16th-18th centuries)
  (2014) Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 57 (4), pp. 511-548.
  http://www.brill.com/journal-economic-and-social-history-orient
  doi: 10.1163/15685209-12341357
  
• 
  7

  Gänger, S.

  World trade in medicinal plants from Spanish America, 1717-1815
  (2014) Medical History, 59 (1), pp. 44-62.
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=MDH
  doi: 10.1017/mdh.2014.70
  
• 
  8

  Schiebinger, L.
  (2004) Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cited 263 times.
  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
  

  •  
• 
  9

  Smith, S.H.

  'Profits sprout like tropical plants': A fresh look at what went wrong with the Eurasian spice trade c. 1550-1800
  (2008) Journal of Global History, 3 (3), pp. 389-418. Cited 7 times.
  doi: 10.1017/S1740022808002775
  
• 
  10

  Foust, C.M.
  (1969) Muscovite and Mandarin: Russia's Trade with China and Its Setting, 1727-1805, pp. 164-185. Cited 21 times.
  Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press
  

  •  
• 
  11

  Foust, C.M.
  (1992) Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug. Cited 26 times.
  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
  

  •  
• 
  12

  Che-Chia, C.
  Origins of a misunderstanding: The Qianlong emperor's embargo on rhubarb exports to Russia, the scenario and its consequences
  (2006) Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, 1 (2), pp. 335-354. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  13

  Monahan, E.
  Locating rhubarb: Early modernity's relevant obscurity
  (2013) Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800, pp. 227-251.
  Paula Findlen, ed., New York: Routledge
  

  •  
• 
  14

  Tavernier, J.-B.
  (1684) Collections of Travels Through Turky into Persia, and the East- Indies, 1, p. 182.
  London
  

  •  
• 
  15

  Martin, J.
  (1986) Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The fur Trade and Its Significance for Medieval Russia, pp. 42-43. Cited 37 times.
  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 90-1, 93
  

  •  
• 
  16

  Kunkel, N.
  Wissenschaftsaustausch zwischen Rußland und Westeuropa, insbesondere Deutschland, in der Botanik and Pharmazie vom 18. bis zum frühen 20
  (1999) Jahrhundert, Munich: Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, pp. 144-145.
  

  •  
• 
  17

  Nanzatov, B.Z., Sodnompilova, M.M.
  Lekarstvennye sredstva v torgovo-obmennykh operatsiiakh mezhdu Rossiei, Mongoliei i Kitaem vXVII-XIX vv. (Medicine in trade and exchange transactions among Russia, Mongolia and China in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries)
  (2014) Vestnik BNTs so RAN, 16 (4), pp. 92-93.
  

  •  
• 
  18

  Appleby, J.H.
  (1979) British Doctors in Russia, 1657-1807: Their Contribution to Anglo-Russian Medical and Natural History. Cited 3 times.
  PhD thesis, University of East Anglia
  

  •  
• 
  19

  Wills, R.
  (2002) The Jacobites and Russia, 1715-1750, East Linton, pp. 40-67.
  East Lothian: Tuckwell Press
  

  •  
• 
  20

  Bivins, R.E.
  (2000) Acupuncture, Expertise and Cross-cultural Medicine, Basingstoke: Palgrave
  

  •  
• 
  21

  Cook, H.J.
  (2007) Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. Cited 292 times.
  New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
  

  •  
• 
  22

  Raj, K.
  (2007) Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900. Cited 196 times.
  Basingstoke: Palgrave
  

  •  
• 
  23

  Bruijn, I.
  (2009) Ship's Surgeons of the Dutch East India Company: Commerce and the Progress of Medicine in the Eighteenth Century. Cited 8 times.
  Leiden: Leiden University Press
  

  •  
• 
  24

  Winterbottom, A.E.

  Of the China Root: A case study of the early modern circulation of materia medica
  (2015) Social History of Medicine, 28 (1), pp. 22-44. Cited 3 times.
  http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/
  doi: 10.1093/shm/hku068
  
• 
  25

  Rowell, M.

  Medicinal plants in Tsarist Russia.
  (1976) Janus; revue internationale de l"histoire des sciences, de la medecine, de la pharmacie, et de la technique, 63 (1-2 3), pp. 85-93.
  
• 
  26

  Rowell, M.

  Russian medical botany before the time of Peter the Great.
  (1978) Sudhoffs Archiv; Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 62 (4), pp. 339-358. Cited 3 times.
  
• 
  27

  Appleby
  British Doctors, pp. 337-365.
  

  •  
• 
  28

  Appelby, J.H.
  Daniel Dumaresq, D.D., F.R.S. (1712-1805) as a promoter of Anglo-Russian science and culture
  (1990) Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 44 (1), pp. 25-50. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  29

  Koroloff, R.
  (2014) Seeds of Exchange: Collecting for Russia's Apothecary and Botanical Gardens in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
  PhD thesis, University of Illinois
  

  •  
• 
  30

  Demidova, H.F., Miasnikov, V.S.
  (1969) Russko-Kitaiskie Otnosheniia v XVII Veke (Russian-Chinese Relations in the Seventeenth Century), 1 (182), pp. 1608-1683. Cited 2 times.
  Moscow: Nauka, 28 February 1675, p. 336
  

  •  
• 
  31

  Mancall, M.
  (1971) Russia and China: Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728. Cited 43 times.
  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
  

  •  
• 
  32

  Perdue, P.C.
  (2005) China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Asia, pp. 94-173. Cited 301 times.
  Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press
  

  •  
• 
  33

  Barany, G.
  (1986) The Anglo-Russian Entente Cordiale of 1697-1698: Peter i and William III at Utrecht. Cited 2 times.
  Boulder, CO: East European Monographs
  

  •  
• 
  34

  Avril, P.
  (1693) Travels into Divers Parts of Europe and Asia, p. 142. Cited 3 times.
  London
  

  •  
• 
  35

  Kotilaine, J.
  (2005) Russia's Foreign Trade and Economic Expansion in the Seventeenth Century: Windows on the World, pp. 484-493.
  Leiden, Brill
  

  •  
• 
  36

  Foust
  Muscovite and Mandarin, pp. 15-18.
  

  •  
• 
  37

  Mancall
  Russia and China, pp. 208-213. Cited 6 times.
  

  •  
• 
  38

  Perdue
  China Marches West, pp. 133-299. Cited 301 times.
  

  •  
• 
  39

  Burgess, R.

  Thomas Garvine Ayrshire surgeon active in Russia and China
  (1975) Medical History, 19 (1), pp. 91-94. Cited 4 times.
  
• 
  40

  Bell also wrote a short biography of Peter the Great, focused on his Caucasian blunders. National Library of Scotland, MS 189, Carmichael and Gordon Papers, 'Sundry anecdotes of Peter the first', ff. 10-29
  

  •  
• 
  41

  Bell, J.
  (1763) Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to Divers Parts of Asia, 1, pp. 110-111.
  2 vols., Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis
  

  •  
• 
  42

  Jartoux, F.
  The description of a Tartarian plant, called Ginseng; With an account of its virtues
  (1809) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Abridged, pp. 56-61.
  eds. Charles Hutton, George Shaw, and Richard Pearson, vol. VI, from 1713 to 1733, London: C. and B. Baldwin, here 56
  

  •  
• 
  43

  Du Halde, J.B.
  (1736) Description Géographique, Historique, Chronologique, Politique, et Physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tatarie, 3, pp. 461-467.
  La Haye: Henri Scheurleer
  

  •  
• 
  44

  Rowell, M.
  Linnaeus and botanists in eighteenth-century Russia
  (1980) Taxon, 29 (1), pp. 15-26. Cited 3 times.
  esp. 23-4
  

  •  
• 
  45

  Appleby, J.H.

  "Rhubarb" Mounsey and the Surinam toad--a Scottish physician--naturalist in Russia.
  (1982) Archives of natural history, 11 (1), pp. 137-152.
  
• 
  46

  Thomas, G.C.G.
  Some correspondence of Dr. James Mounsey, physician to the empress of Russia
  (1985) Scottish Slavonic Review, 4, p. 19.
  

  •  
• 
  47

  Bell
  Travels from St. Petersburg, 2, pp. 142-143.
  

  •  
• 
  48

  Gmelin, J.G.
  (1767) Voyage en Sibérie, 2, p. 183.
  2 vols., Paris: Desant
  

  •  
• 
  49

  His major study of Siberian plants was published in Latin, Flora Sibirica sive historia plantarum Sibiriae, 4 vols., St Petersburg, 1747-69. His travel journals were first published in German, followed by Dutch and French translations;
  

  •  
• 
  50

  Gmelin, J.G.
  Reise Durch Sibirien Vom Dem Jahr 1733 Bis 1743, pp. 1751-1752. Cited 10 times.
  4 vols., Gottingen: Abram Bandenhoect
  

  •  
• 
  51

  Hellie, R.
  (1999) The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600-1725, p. 191. Cited 57 times.
  Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
  

  •  
• 
  52

  Tobolsk is from Foust, Rhubarb, pp. 46-7
  

  •  
• 
  53

  Willan, T.S.
  (1956) The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553-1603, p. 82. Cited 45 times.
  Manchester: Manchester University Press
  

  •  
• 
  54

  The Sound Toll Register. Cited 2 times.
  (consulted 30 October 2014)
  http://www.soundtoll.nl/index.php/en/over-het-project/str-online/
  

  •  
• 
  55

  Wallis
  Exotic Drugs, pp. 31-32. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  56

  Hinton, R.W.K.
  (1959) The Eastland Trade and the Common Weal in the Seventeenth Century, p. 104.
  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  

  •  
• 
  57

  Foust
  Rhubarb, pp. 47-55. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  58

  Hellie
  Economy, pp. 191-192. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  59

  Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (The complete collection of the laws of the Russian empire), Series 1, 45 vols, St Petersburg, 1830, vol. 7, no. 5110, 26 June 1727, 819-21
  

  •  
• 
  60

  Foust
  Rhubarb, pp. 55-57. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  61

  'Sound Toll register
  

  •  
• 
  62

  (1731) Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov, 8, p. 450.
  no. 5741, 8 April
  

  •  
• 
  63

  Foust
  Rhubarb, pp. 56-58. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  64

  Foust
  Rhubarb, pp. 55-57. Cited 2 times.
  

  •  
• 
  65

  Cross, A.
  (1997) By the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-century Russia, pp. 55-58.
  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  

  •  
• 
  66

  The National Archives, United Kingdom (henceforth TNA), State Papers: Russia (henceforth SP 91)
  (1735) Rondeau to Samuel Holden, 19, pp. 6-9.
  27 December
  

  •  
• 
  67

  Foust
  Rhubarb, (62), p. 260.
  

  •  
• 
  68

  TNA, SP 91/19, 'Copy of Chitty's petition', 24 May 1736, ff. 80-6
  

  •  
• 
  69

  TNA, SP 91/19, 'Rondeau's answer to Chitty's petition', 10 July 1736, ff. 143-50
  

  •  
• 
  70

  TNA, CO 389/29, 'Report to the Lords of the Commerce Council upon Mr. Chitty's petition', 27May 1736, ff. 213-14
  

  •  
• 
  71

  Memorial from Osterman
  Russian F. 151r., in French Translation F. 152r
  The Russian government also supported Shiffner and Wolff's innocence: TNA, SP 91/19
  

  •  
• 
  72

  TNA, SP 91/20, 'Verdict in Chitty affair', 11 August 1736, f. 15r-v
  

  •  
• 
  73

  Senatskii arkhiv (Senate archive), 15 vols., St Petersburg: Senatskaia tipografiia, 1888-1913, vol. 5, pp. 396-411, 20 August 1742. Foust, Rhubarb, pp. 66-7, discusses this in greater detail
  

  •  
• 
  74

  Hanway, J.
  (1753) An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 1, p. 127.
  4 vols., London
  

  •  
• 
  75

  Monahan, E.
  (2007) Trade and Empire: Merchant Networks, Frontier Commerce, and the State in Western Siberia, 1644-1728, pp. 360-361. Cited 3 times.
  PhD thesis, Stanford University
  

  •  
• 
  76

  (1743) Senatskii Arkhiv, 5, pp. 543-548.
  3 March
  

  •  
• 
  77

  The British government received this guarantee in 1756, but it was immediately violated as Russia entered the war on the side of the French. See, for example, TNA, SP 91/60, 'Note given to Hanbury-Williams from the Russian Chancellors', 12 March 1756, ff. 164-5
  

  •  
• 
  78

  TNA, Treasury, T 64/241, 'An account of the exports of British manufactures from Scotland to Holland Germany and Russia distinguishing each year, and the species of goods and the quantities and values to each of the said countries for forty years, preceding January 1772
  

  •  
• 
  79

  (1761) Bute to Lords Commissioners of Trade, p. 92.
  TNA, CO 388/49, 17 August
  

  •  
• 
  80

  (1761) Mr. Wood to Lords Commissioners, pp. 124-125.
  19 September
  

  •  

  Romaniello, M.P.; Department of History, University of Hawai'i, 2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki, A203, United States; email:mpr@hawaii.edu
© Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.