Drugs from the Colonies:
The New American Medicine Chest
PLEASURE-DRUGS WITH HEALTHFUL CLAIMS: CHOCOLATE, COCA, AND TOBACCO
Chocolate, cocoa, and peppers, everyday items in the modern kitchen, were understood in the early modern period as potent drugs with important medical potential. Tobacco, used ceremonially and medicinally by Native Americans, had an enormous impact on Europe as a pleasure-drug, but was also seen by medical experts primarily as a pharmaceutical resource. Peyote and other stimulants and hallucinogens were used ritually by Indians (and in other ways), but were feared by establishment Europeans for their psychoactive capabilities.
CAYENNE PEPPER
Theodor Zwinger (1658-1724). Theatrum botanicum, das ist: Neu vollkommenes Kräuter-Buch … Allen Aertzten, Wund-Ärtzten, Apotheckern, Gärthern, Hauss-Vättern und Hauss-Müttern, sonderlich auch denen auff dem Land wohnenden Krancken und presthafften Persohnen höchst nutzlich und ergetzlich. Basel: Jacob Bertsche; Frankfurt: Johann Philipp Richter, 1696.
The title of Zwinger’s great herbal compendium proclaims its essential utility to all doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, parents, and the sick themselves. On facing pages (196-197), he presents but a few of the great variety of pepper plants found in the New World. These varieties of Capsicum are native to the Amazon basin and were disseminated throughout the world. The work is based on Bernhard Verzascha’s edition of Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s Latin herbal published in Verona in 1586, but so greatly revised and enlarged as to constitute a new work, including 1200 woodcuts. The illustrations are considered to provide excellent detail. Zwinger held the rank of Professor at the University of Basel.
CAYENNE PEPPER
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Over de voorteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten. Amsterdam: Joannes Oosterwyk, 1719.
The German artist and scientific observer Maria Merian and her daughter traveled to Suriname to live there in a religious community founded by the Labadists, who followed the teachings of a French pietist. Plate 55 of Merian’s study of Suriname’s natural history is Piper indicum (Capsicum anuum). Merian’s record of plants in Suriname includes notes by Caspar Commelin that describe the use of Cayenne pepper as an accompaniment to bread or meat. Reference is also made to the botanical writings of Dodoens, Tournefort, and Bauhin.
CAYENNE PEPPER
Samuel Nicoll. Dissertatio medica, inauguralis, de arthritide.
Edinburgh: Balfour & Smellie, Academiae Typographos, 1776.
This dissertation on the medical problems of gout, arthritis, or lameness in the joints was prepared by an American at the University of Edinburgh and completed in the year the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. It includes discussion (p. 22) on the use of Cayenne pepper (Capsicum) to clear the ventricles of the heart; numerous European medical writers are cited. Capsicum was of great importance to Native American medicine and continues to be viewed in herbal medicine as an instrument of the healthy heart. The chemical capsaicin, which can be extracted from most peppers, is used in modern medicine as a circulatory stimulant and analgesic, chiefly in topical applications.
CHOCOLATE and CACAO
Eberhard Werner Happel (1647-1690). Thesaurus exoticorum. Hamburg: Thomas von Wiering, 1688.
The woodcut "Muteczuma, Rex ultimus Mexicanorum" portrays the last emperor of Mexico, who was reputed to enjoy 50 mugs of liquid chocolate a day, the preferred upper-class drink in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards. Chocolate was understood to possess a variety of healthy properties. As Happel tells the story, it "serves to strengthen the chest, drives away all nasty vapors ... crushes and disperses stones (calculi) and ill humor, and maintains the body in good health."
CHOCOLATE
Henry Stubbe (1632-1676). The Indian nectar, or A discourse concerning chocolate. London: J.C., for Andrew Crook, 1662.
While chocolate is proposed for “alimental and venereal quality”, its most important medical use is for hypochondriacal melancholy, or depression. Stubbe notes that there is considerable medical fraud in claiming presence of chocolate in medications. “Hypochondria” in the early medical sense refers not to excessive concern about well-being, but to an area in the upper abdomen that was thought to be a generator of ills.
CACAO
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Over de voorteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten. Amsterdam: Joannes Oosterwyk, 1719.
Plate 26 of Merian’s study of the insects and plants of Suriname portrays cacao. The text notes that cacao grows well without cultivation in Suriname, but requires the shade of another plant. For this reason, it is sometimes grown near bananas. The beans must be dried thoroughly before export.
COCA AND BEZOAR
Bry, Theodor de. [America. Part 9. German]. Frankfurt a.M.: W. Richter & M. Becker, 1601.
Though his identity is suppressed as merely “a Jesuit author,” this is the monumental work of José de Acosta, originally published in 1590 as Historia natural y moral de las Indias. Acosta addressed many ethnographic and scientific subjects, including the use of coca by the Indians, who regarded it as essential to their strength and well-being. It is generally understood that the chewing of coca leaves makes living and working at high altitudes possible. Cocaine, the refined product of coca, was widespread as a medical ingredient in the later nineteenth century, until its dangers were fully recognized.
Acosta found the llama to be the greatest economic asset of the indigenous peoples, both for its wool and as a beast of burden that required nothing for sustenance but the native grasses. At the same time, llamas and other animals in the region produced bezoar stones in their alimentary canals, which when reduced to powder were used as antidotes to poisons and to illnesses that followed poisoning. In terms of quality, he wrote that the most prized were those of the East Indies, with Peru in second place and New Spain in third.
In the de Bry engraving, the llamas are shown bearing ore from mines. Llamas were also in regular use to carry coca leaves, which were transported in narrow baskets. The trade in coca was enormous; Acosta wrote that in the mining capital of Potosí alone, there was an annual trade of more than a half million pesos, with 100,000 baskets sold in Potosí as late as 1583 out of gross sales of 95,000,000 baskets. Acosta noted that a basket of coca leaves was worth 2.5 to 3 pesos in Cuzco, but in the labor-intensive Potosí could bring 4 to 5 pesos. Coca also figured prominently as a medium of exchange. Acosta noted that the trade and cultivation of coca was dangerous, and that authorities had frequently considered eradicating the crop entirely, but had never determined to take action, perhaps because native laborers were so dependent on the leaves to maintain their strength. Many workers, traveling from the colder mountain regions, were lost in the hot, unhealthy conditions of those areas where coca thrived; llamas often suffered the same fate, dying of overexposure to heat
COCA
Mercurio peruano de historia, literature, y noticias publicas que da a luz la Sociedad academica de amantes de Lima. [Vol. 11] Lima: Royal Press for Orphaned Children, 1794.
“La coca del Peru” portrays the coca plant in bloom, with other stages and parts of the plant represented below. In July and August of 1794, several issues of this Peruvian journal devoted articles to the plant and its use.
PEYOTE
Francisco Hernández (1517-1587). De materia medicaNovae Hispaniae Philippi Secundi Hispaniarum ac Indiarum Regis invictissimi iussu collecta. [The Escorial, between 1577 and 1589?].
“Peyotl –id est radix” is the last of several identifications on this page from the manuscript epitome of Francisco Hernández’s study of New Spain’s natural history in the years 1570-77.
The author provides the indigenous Nahuatl name of peyote and defines it in Latin: “It is a root.”
Peyote as we know it is a powerful stimulant made from peyote cactus (Lophora williamsii). However, Hernández narrative describes two plants, Peyotl zacatensi, and Peyotl xochimilcensi the second of which is not even a cactus. It seems as though the name peyotl was extended to this other plant (Cacalia diversifolia) because of the similarity of its roots to those of the peyote cactus. The plant is sold even today as an aphrodisiac and remedy for sterility; it is assigned the name cachan or peyote, depending on the locale of sale. There are still other plants whose similar roots have attracted the name peyote, but the one most familiar to cultural history contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. It has a long history of medicinal and ritualistic use by Native Americans, and was the subject from 1620 of various Spanish colonial edicts that sought to eliminate it.
SUGAR
Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), praeses; Johann Elias Maederjan, respondent. Dissertatio medica inauguralis, sistens sacchari historiam naturalem et medicam. Halle: Christoph Andreas Zeitler, 1701.
Before the mass production of sugar cane and sugar beets made it a consumer product, sugar was understood chiefly as a medicine or a medical additive to improve the taste of medicine. This medical dissertation addresses the pharmaceutical uses of sugar, and was developed under the direction of the eminent German chemist, Friedrich Hoffmann, who was also one of the most distinguished physicians of the turn of the eighteenth century. The work offers a history of sugar in its various sources, where it is produced, its purification and types (e.g., molasses, crystals), and its pharmaceutical uses. Included are several references to the West Indies, Caribbean, and especially Peru. Other Peruvian botanicals are also mentioned such as cinchona and balsam of Peru.
TOBACCO – CURE-ALL OF THE FUTURE?
Theodor de Bry. [America. Part 2. German]. Frankfurt a.M.: J. Feyerabend for J.T. de Bry, 1591.
The illustration of Indian healing practices – “How they heal the sick” – appears in an edition of René Goulaine de Laudonnière’s account of the French in Florida (L'histoire notable de la Floride) that was published by Theodor de Bry in 1591. The engraving may be based on a sketch or painting prepared by Jacques LeMoine, who also spent time in the Florida colony. De Bry and LeMoine had conversations in London with the intention of publishing LeMoine’s narrative and images, but with the latter’s untimely death, de Bry had to proceed with what was available. The picture captions in Der ander Theil der newlich erfundenen Landtschafft Americae are drawn from Laudonnière’s text, LeMoine’s scant extant writing, and de Bry’s conversations with him.
The caption here explains the Indian methods of healing that the French encountered in Florida: They fashion benches and place the patients on their backs or stomachs, depending on the ailment. The healer cuts the patient’s forehead with a shell and sucks blood that is emptied into a vessel. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding drink the blood to strengthen their children. Patients on their stomachs inhale smoke from embers, causing them to vomit and thus expel the illness from their bodies. Other patients inhale smoke from dried leaves called ubannock, petum, or tobacco, and expel it, helping to discharge morbid fluids. The Indians described are from one of the Timucuan-speaking tribes that then inhabited the northern part of Florida.
Johann Neander (ca. 1596-ca. 1630). Tabacologia: hoc est, Tabaci, seu Nicotiana description medico-cheirurgico-pharmaceutica. Leiden: Isaac Elzevir, 1622.
Neander opposed the recreational use of tobacco, seeing its habitual use as physiologically harmful and socially toxic in a similar way to alcohol. He approved of its use in multiple medical applications, including treatments for wounds, ulcers, and other maladies. He thought it helpful as an eyewash for optical problems, restoring a keenness of sight even for elderly patients. Indeed, there were few non-fatal illnesses for which it did not serve as a panacea. In this he shared the common views laid out by Liebault, Monardes, and Everard. The second half of the book includes numerous recipes incorporating other medical ingredients and flavorings.
In the illustration (p. 31), young Native Americans harvest, dry, and boil tobacco leaves. A medical potion was thus prepared with the help of a fermented beverage, powdered ginger, and other spices. The resulting product was stored in closed vessels, and tobacco leaves could be dipped in it to achieve special potency. He notes that the Spaniards called this product caldo.
Johann Andreas Stisser (1657-1700). De machinis fumiductoriis curiosis…Epistola ad illustrissimos viros MagnæSocietatis Regiæ Anglicanæ.Hamburg: G. Liebezeit 1686.
This medical study focuses on the use of tobacco smoke mixed with medicines to treat nervous disorders, including hysteria and epilepsy. It also compares the design and efficacy of English and German pipes in delivering the therapy. The plates show the various pipes and their components. Stisser advocated the introduction of medicine-laced tobacco vapor not only into the nose and mouth, but as well into the ears and lower digestive tract. The pipes shown here were intended for the delivery of clysters.
TOBACCO AND THE AMERICAN DEFICIT
Sustaining the British colonies required a substantial investment in products imported from Great Britain, while products imported from the colonies always lagged behind, generating a permanent balance of payments deficit. Only in 1774 did the balance shift in America’s favor, and the difference lay chiefly in the increase in sales of tobacco, an increasingly important consumer product. Did tobacco therefore finance the American Revolution? Henry Hobhouse (Seeds of Change, 1985) called this “an attractive theory.” In truth, the export of grain was also an important factor in American economics.
This posthumous edition of Ramazzini’s collected works includes his De abusu chinae chinae, on the misapplication of quinine, as well as his remarkable treatise on industrial medicine (occupational diseases), De morbis artificium diatriba. In it he addresses the ailments peculiar to 53 occupational groups, including typesetters and printers, scribes and notaries, tobacco workers, and apothecaries. The latter suffer from the preparation of opiates and from inhaling other toxic mixes. Tobacco workers are described as suffering from an alarming array of ills, including disorders of the head, lungs, stomach, and skin. Workers are advised to cover the nose and mouth and to breathe fresh air as often as possible.
YUPA
Filippo Salvadore Gilii (1721-1789). Saggio di storia americana o Sia storia naturale, civile, e sacra de regni, e delle provincie spagnuole di terra-ferma nell'America meridionale. Rome: Luigi Perego, 1780.
Native Americans of the Orinoco River valley are shown cultivating plants, including the pineapple, manioc or cassava and its tubers, banana palms, and the yupa, curupa, ñopo, or curuba tree. Recognizable tools include the hoe and spade. The yupa plant is the source of the hallucinogenic drug made from the seeds of various species of piptadenias and used by many indigenous tribes in South America and the Caribbean. The ground seeds are inhaled as a powder using a bifurcated tube into the nostrils.
Exhibition may be seen in Reading Room from september 27, 2011 through
december 22, 2011.
Exhibition prepared by Dennis C. Landis, Curator of European Books.