Russian Empire in the System of Global Trade in Medicinal Herbs in the Late 18th – Early 19th Century and the Problem of Proportion Between “Scientific” and “Traditional” Pharmaceutics

 
PIIS020596060014061-9-1
DOI10.31857/S020596060014061-9
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Affiliation: National Research University - Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg
Address: St. Petersburg, Promyshlennaya 17, St. Petersburg 198095, Russia
Journal nameVoprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki
EditionVolume 42 Issue 4
Pages698-725
Abstract

This article examines Russian imports of medicinal plants in the late 18th – early 19th centuries and the attempts to reduce these procurements by using home-grown plants instead in the context of a general crisis in European trade during the Napoleonic wars. It attempts to estimate the volumes of imported medicinal materials, analyzes the range of medicinal plants, and compares the trades in exotic medicinal plants in Russia with the known data about their circulation in various European countries. The article demonstrates the dependency of Russian state-run apothecaries and hospitals on both the imported exotic plants and species native to the Russian Empire in the late 18th – early 19th centuries, and examines the available data concerning the apothecary gardens and wild medicinal plants harvesting for state-run apothecaries in Russia. It highlights the lack of infrastructure for a steady supply of native plants to state-run apothecaries and hospitals, the factor that accounted for the futility of attempts to reduce the dependency on imported medicaments in the early 19th century. At the same time, the paper emphasizes the continuing presence of local potion and herb shops trading in medicinal plants long before the transfer of European pharmaceutical institutions and practices to the Russian empire. These shops were not restricted to trading in indigenous plants only but could also sell the exotic ones. This fact undermines the simple binary model of European and “indigenous” or “folk” pharmaceutical traditions co-existing in Russia in the late 18th – early 19th centuries, arguing instead for their entangled histories.

Keywordsmedicinal plants, exotic and indigenous species of medicinal plants, trade in medicinal plants, apothecaries, apothecary gardens, harvesting medicinal plants in wild nature, Russian import trade, pharmacy in the eighteenth – nineteenth centuries
Received13.12.2021
Publication date14.12.2021
Number of characters70649
Cite  
100 rub.
When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 0, views: 352

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Bacheracht H. Pharmacopoea navalis Rossica aut Catalogus omnium necessariorum medicamentorum quae secundum ordinem navium classicarum pro itinere semestri in scrinio navali habere, oportet revisa et approbata a Collegio Medico Imperiali / Edita ab Andrea Bacheracht d. consiliario aulico et classis navalis medico ordinario. Petropoli: S. n., 1784.

2. Boumediene S. La colonisation du savoir. Une histoire des plantes medicinales du « Nouveau Monde » (1492-1750). Vaulx-en-Velin : Editions des Mondes a faire, 2016.

3. Cook H.J., Walker T. Circulation of Medicine in the Early Modern Atlantic World // Social History of Medicine. 2013. Vol. 26. No. 3. P. 337-351.

4. De Vos P. Natural History and the Pursuit of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Spain // Eighteenth-Century Studies. 2007. Vol. 40. No. 2. P. 209–239.

5. Elina O.Iu. Ot tsarskikh sadov do sovetskikh polei. Istoriia sel'skokhoziaistvennykh opytnykh uchrezhdenii, XVIII – 20-e gg. KhKh v. V 2-kh t. T.1. M.: b.i., 2008.

6. Fedotova A.A. Rossiiskie botaniko-geografy v gody «vtoroi otechestvennoi» // Nauka, tekhnika i obshchestvo Rossii i Germanii vo vremia Pervoi mirovoi voiny / Otv. red. E.I. Kolchinskii, D. Bairau; red.-sost. Iu.A. Laius. SPb.: Nestor-Istoriia, 2007. S. 364-391.

7. Foust C. Rhubarb: the Wondrous Drug. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

8. [Gaevskii S.F.] Nastavlenie o lechenii bolezni, nazyvaemoi kholera (Cholera morbus), izdannoe Meditsinskim sovetom. SPb.: tip. Med. dep. MVD, 1828;

9. [Gaevskii S.F.] Traktat o poval'no-zarazitel'noi bolezni kholere, byvshei v Rossii v 1830 i 1831 godu, sochinennyi chlenami Meditsinskogo soveta pri Tsentral'noi komissii i rassmotrennyi Meditsinskim sovetom MVD. SPb.: tip. Med. dep. MVD, 1831.

10. Ganger S. A Singular Remedy: Cinchona Across the Atlantic World, 1751–1820. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2020.

11. Ganger S. World Trade in Medicinal Plants from Spanish America, 1717–1815 // Medical History. 2015. Vol. 59. No. 1. P. 44-62.

12. Gorelova L.E. Pervyi meditsinskii zhurnal v Rossii // Russkii meditsinskii zhurnal. 2002. ¹ 24. S. 1133–1134.

13. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1802 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1803.

14. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1803 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1804.

15. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1804 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1805.

16. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1805 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1806.

17. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1807 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1808.

18. Gosudarstvennaia torgovlia Rossii 1812 g. v raznykh ee vidakh. SPb.: Kommerts-kollegiia, 1813.

19. Il'in L.F. Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk kafedry farmatsii i farmatsevticheskogo otdeleniia Imperatorskoi Voenno-meditsinskoi akademii. SPb.: Tip. MVD, 1899.

20. Imperatorskii S.-Peterburgskii botanicheskii sad za 200 let ego sushchestvovaniia (1713-1913) / Sost. V.I. Lipskii, gl. red. A.A. Fisher-fon-Val'dgeim. Ch. 1. SPb., 1913.

21. Istoriia Imperatorskoi Voenno-meditsinskoi (byvshei Mediko-khirurgicheskoi) akademii za sto let. 1798-1898 / Pod red. prof. Ivanovskogo. SPb.: B.i., 1898.

22. Lee M.R. Ipecacuanha: The South American Vomiting Root // Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 2008. No. 38. P. 355–360.

23. Letopis' Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk. V 3-kh t. T. II. 1803-1860 / Otv. red. M.F. Khartanovich. SPb.: Nauka, 2002.

24. Mesiatsoslov s rospis'iu chinovnykh osob ili obshchii shtat Rossiiskoi imperii na leto ot Rozhdestva Khristova 1809. Ch. 1-2. SPb.: Tip. IAN, 1809.

25. Mesiatsoslov s rospis'iu chinovnykh osob ili obshchii shtat Rossiiskoi imperii na leto ot Rozhdestva Khristova 1811. Ch. 1-2. SPb.: Tip. IAN, 1811.

26. Mesiatsoslov s rospis'iu chinovnykh osob ili obshchii shtat Rossiiskoi imperii na leto ot Rozhdestva Khristova 1812. Ch. 1-2. SPb.: Tip. IAN, 1812.

27. Mesiatsoslov s rospis'iu chinovnykh osob ili obshchii shtat Rossiiskoi imperii na leto ot Rozhdestva Khristova 1806. Ch. 1-2. SPb.: Tip. IAN, 1806.

28. Nekrasova V.L. Istoriia izucheniia dikorastushchikh syr'evykh rastenii v SSSR. M.; L.: Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1958.

29. Pharmacopoea Rossica. Petropoli, S. n., 1782.

30. Pushkin A.S. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii / Red. komitet: M. Gor'kii, S.M. Bondi, V.D. Bonch-Bruevich [i dr.]. T. 12: Kritika; avtobiografiia. M.; L.: Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1949.

31. Romaniello M. True Rhubarb? Trading Eurasian Botanical and Medical knowledge in the Eighteenth Century // Journal of Global History. 2016. Vol. 11. No. 1. P. 3-23.

32. Rossiia. Zakony i postanovleniia. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii. Sobranie 1-e. S 1649 po 12 dekabria 1825. SPb.: Tip. 2-go otdeleniia Sobstvennoi Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva kantseliarii, 1830-1851.

33. Salo V.M. Istoriia farmatsii v Rossii. M.: Litterra, 2007.

34. Sankt-Peterburgskaia adresnaia kniga na 1809 g. SPb.: Tip. V. Plavil'shchikova, 1809.

35. Schiebinger L. Plants and Empire. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2004.

36. Schuster N.H. English Doctors in Russia in the Early Nineteenth Century // Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1968. Vol. 61. P.185-190.

37. Sistematicheskii katalog biblioteki Imperatorskoi Mediko-khirurgicheskoi akademii. Ch. 1. T. 1. SPb.: Tipografiia Iakova Treia, 1871.

38. Veluwenkamp J.W., Scheltjens W. Baltic Drugs Traffic, 1650–1850. Sound Toll Registers Online as a Source for the Import of Exotic Medicines in the Baltic Sea Area // Social History of Medicine. 2017. Vol. 31. No. 1. P. 140–176.

39. Vishlenkova E.A. Shotlandskoe proiskhozhdenie russkoi meditsinskoi elity v nachale XIX veka // Dialog so vremenem. 2017. Vyp. 61. S. 216-234.

40. Walker T. The Early Modern Globalization of Indian Medicine: Portuguese Dissemination of Drugs and Healing Techniques from South Asia on Four Continents, 1670–1830 // Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies. 2010. No. 17/18. P. 77–97.

41. Wallis P. Exotic Drugs and English Medicine: England’s Drug Trade, c.1550–c.1800 // Social History of Medicine. 2011. Vol. 25. No. 1. P. 20-46.

42. Wylie J. Pharmacopoeia castrensis ruthena. Petropoli: S.n., 1808.

43. Zablotskii-Desiatovskii A.P. Statisticheskie svedeniia o Sankt-Peterburge. SPb.: v Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1836.

Система Orphus

Loading...
Up