Page from a Russian Herbal book, seventeenth century. Image used with kind permission of the Library of the Russian Academy of Science, St Petersburg.
Mixing Medicines
The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia
As reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement
When the Tsars took their sassafras – a global history of early modern Russian medicine.
In early modern Russia one particular way of treating the sick was preferred above all
others: taking drugs. This focus on materia medica led to the Moscow court sourcing
materials not only from within its own sprawling empire, but from Asia, Africa, Western
Europe, and the Americas. Mixing Medicines introduces the reader to the dynamic and
complex world of early modern Russian medical drugs, from the enthusiasm for newly
imported American botanicals to the disgust at Western European medicines made from
human corpses.
Based on a unique set of previously unused sources, this book is the first study of how
the Russian Empire took part in the early modern global trade in medical drugs. The
extensive and detailed records kept by the Moscow court show how ingredients produced elsewhere and passed through the massive, long-distance trade network of the early modern world were finally consumed. Looking at medicine as materia medica gives us a different perspective than when looking at practitioners, texts, and ideas. Here we get an everyday, nitty-gritty account of the practicalities of importing and using medical drugs that contrasts with what contemporary medical texts tell us should have been happening.
Standing at the bedside of a dying Tsar, looking over the shoulder of an apothecary grinding his ingredients, watching the interrogation of rogue drug-traders, we see how the dramatic reshaping of global trade in the early modern period impacted the day-to-day lives of the people living through it.
Mixing Medicines is out now with McGill-Queens University Press
You can purchase a copy here.
You can download an open-access ebook here.
When the Tsars took their sassafras – a global history of early modern Russian medicine.
In early modern Russia one particular way of treating the sick was preferred above all
others: taking drugs. This focus on materia medica led to the Moscow court sourcing
materials not only from within its own sprawling empire, but from Asia, Africa, Western
Europe, and the Americas. Mixing Medicines introduces the reader to the dynamic and
complex world of early modern Russian medical drugs, from the enthusiasm for newly
imported American botanicals to the disgust at Western European medicines made from
human corpses.
Based on a unique set of previously unused sources, this book is the first study of how
the Russian Empire took part in the early modern global trade in medical drugs. The
extensive and detailed records kept by the Moscow court show how ingredients produced elsewhere and passed through the massive, long-distance trade network of the early modern world were finally consumed. Looking at medicine as materia medica gives us a different perspective than when looking at practitioners, texts, and ideas. Here we get an everyday, nitty-gritty account of the practicalities of importing and using medical drugs that contrasts with what contemporary medical texts tell us should have been happening.
Standing at the bedside of a dying Tsar, looking over the shoulder of an apothecary grinding his ingredients, watching the interrogation of rogue drug-traders, we see how the dramatic reshaping of global trade in the early modern period impacted the day-to-day lives of the people living through it.
Mixing Medicines is out now with McGill-Queens University Press
You can purchase a copy here.
You can download an open-access ebook here.
Listen to my interview with The New Books Network here.