Networks of Exchange
History of Medicine Series
The European Age of Enlightenment bore witness to tremendous advances in science, contributing to our modern medical system. Healing became commodified and herbs became medicine. Practitioners became doctors. Folklore, oral traditional, and indigenous practices were subdued by natural science and the institutionalization of medicine. Reason instead of magic. Evidence over belief.
Plants were central to my study of the history of medicine. Everything we need to survive is created from the earth. Earth provides everything we need to thrive. Pharmaceuticals are drugs used for medicinal purposes and historically were mostly derived from plants. Pharmaceuticals over apothecaries.
Through the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the field of natural history developed tremendously in Western Europe. During this period, natural history was defined as understanding the processes of nature experientially. This meant understanding nature in a rational and scientific way. The Enlightenment ushered in the birth of modern science. Paralleled with the expansion of interest in natural history were immense commercial and trade networks across the globe.
At the forefront of increased interest in natural history and commercial expansion were the Dutch. The Dutch Republic in the early seventeenth century were leaders in long-distance trade, scientific insights and had the highest levels of literacy; all products of economic growth. Dutch cosmopolitanism and abundance bolstered a culture of collecting, promoted through scientific inquiry and natural philosophy. The English imitated this model of commercial expansion and scientific inquiry. This time period provides, I believe, important context in understanding how our modern Western culture evolved into what it is today.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was established in 1602. By 1689 it was the Dutch Republic’s largest company with 22,000 employees. The successful model of a joint stock trading company was quickly expanded upon and emulated by other European countries in the seventeenth century. Most notably the English who established their own East India Company (EIC). Both the Dutch and English expanded their trade and, subsequently, colonized lands in the name of increasing material gains.
Profiting from luxury commodities and raw materials became the driving force for establishing trading companies, which, consequently opened up more channels for the influx of other kinds of goods. Most notable in my research were the large amounts of natural specimens coming into Europe from various locales for the first time.
My dissertation examined the travelogues of four different men across the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Jacobus Bontius, a physician, and Johan Nieuhof were both Dutch employees of the VOC in the early seventeenth century. Englishmen Hans Sloane, physician and collector, and James Petiver, apothecary, were both important members of the Royal Society during this period. Sloane and Petiver were better known for their work and collections within London.
Looking at these Dutch and English sources within this period provides an interesting framework for the transfer of knowledge and the circulation of printed material. Travelogues provide valuable information on colonial botany. Colonial botany; the study, naming, cultivation, and marketing of plants in a colonial context, was born of and supported European voyages, conquests, global trade, and scientific exploration.
Innovations across the seventeenth century, such as printing, were relevant to the commodification of scientific knowledge. Printed materials like books provided an outlet from which knowledge could be sold and profited. Dutch printing and bookmaking were essential to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. This also supported a culture of competition as many publishers sought to debunk their rivals with cutting edge research, regardless of validity of data.
As employees of the VOC, Bontius was part of an economic enterprise that exploited foreign goods for commercial gain in the Dutch Republic. The VOC was more concerned with gaining a monopoly over spices, like ginseng and turmeric, than transporting actual indigenous medicinal practices associated with the plants. The import of knowledge through men like Bontius supported competition around monopolies for trade. These men put this appropriated knowledge into circulation in Europe, fueling competition around scientific knowledge as well.
The VOC was interested in the natural history of places like Asia and went to great lengths to hire physicians to conduct medical investigations of indigenous botany. This interest was fueled by economic desires to commodify the knowledge surrounding the plants that were found in these locations that would become colonized by Europeans.
One example from Bontius’s work is the inclusion of turmeric or, as he refers to it, Indian Saffron. Bontius claims that turmeric is “the most used of any in all India” and “it grows so plentifully in the woods, that ships might be loaded with it; notwithstanding which it is cultivated in the gardens.” He then goes on to describe the local uses of turmeric medicinally saying it is
Of the highest utility, as a medicine, administered not only topically, but internally, in all obstructions of the bowels and mesentery… In female disorders, no medicine is so much celebrated… in complaints of the uterus it is specific. And to confirm this opinion by my own experience, I have in reality found nothing so beneficial in all the disorders above-mentioned, as this most excellent remedy.
Bontius’s description of turmeric is enlightening and exemplary of this time period’s “network of exchange.” Individuals involved in institutions like the VOC would travel to colonized lands and study local traditions, often involving uncredited indigenous women, record their opinions, but not include actual local practices or customs surrounding the use of the plants.
Bontius’s descriptions praise the local uses of plants for medicinal purposes but he fails to include any indigenous meanings attached to the plants. He fails to include the cultural significance, the rituals and lore behind involved in the use of the plants he included in his published materials. Rather, Bontius reproduced indigenous knowledge, altered it, and put it into circulation in the Dutch Republic for profit himself.
Dutch curiosity around natural history heightened in the seventeenth century. This increased mobility around the world and fostered an environment that established the beginnings of the scientific revolution. Curiosity and an emphasis on accuracy were at the heart of this transformation. Developments and discovery in science and medicine in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic were made possible by the expanding economy and commerce as well as high levels of capital to invest in these ventures. Printers and bookmakers capitalized on this opportunity to boost sales by publishing books like the travel accounts of Bontius.
What is ironic about these texts given the Dutch emphasis on accuracy and truth, is the lack of it thereof. The images in these published works were very likely based on recycled imagery as opposed to the actual sketches these men did while traveling. These published works were intended to cater to a competitive market surrounding the consumption of natural history as opposed to conveying the truth. Interest in the actual medicinal knowledge of plants such as turmeric was minimal compared to the potential economic value associated with publishing travelogues like Bontius’s.
I believe knowledge is power and networks of exchanging knowledge are powerful. Information can be lost in transit, of course. Yet examining the early period of modern medicine shows plants used for healing were stripped of all ritual, prayer and indigenous practice and instead exploited and commodified under the guise of rational thought. This is why radically reclaiming ancestral practices and learning to re-integrate those pieces that were lost over time is powerful.
We should not glorify the past or strive to move backwards. Rather, looking to the past can empower us to better understand all options to build a better future. Wellness does not come solely from a pill or plant on their own. We’re whole people with emotions, thoughts and beliefs. I’d like to see more reason and magic. Evidence and belief. Information and integration.
This post is edited and adapted from an essay I wrote during my Masters program, including content from my dissertation.
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