2014/01/01 by Matthew James Crawford · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Medicine · Chemistry · #History of Science and Natural History #Historical and Literary Studies #Historical and Scientific Studies #Bark (sound) #Empire #Chemist #Atlantic World #History of chemistry #Traditional medicine #History #Chemistry #Art #Ancient history #Geography #Organic chemistry #Philosophy #Forestry #Medicine #History of science
paper · doi:10.1086/678104
openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
In 1790, the Spanish Crown sent a "botanist-chemist" to South America to implement production of a chemical extract made from cinchona bark, a botanical medicament from the Andes used throughout the Atlantic World to treat malarial fevers. Even though the botanist-chemist's efforts to produce the extract failed, this episode offers important insight into the role of chemistry in the early modern Atlantic World. Well before the Spanish Crown tried to make it a tool of empire, chemistry provided a vital set of techniques that circulated among a variety of healers, who used such techniques to make botanical medicaments useful and intelligible in new ways.