Book contents
- A Singular Remedy
- SCIENCE IN HISTORY
- A Singular Remedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Source Material
- A Note on Language and Translation
- A Note on Weights, Currencies and Measures
- Introduction
- 1 Origin Stories
- 2 The Demands of Humanity
- 3 Community of Practice
- 4 Febrile Situations
- 5 Harvests of Change
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Origin Stories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2020
- A Singular Remedy
- SCIENCE IN HISTORY
- A Singular Remedy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Source Material
- A Note on Language and Translation
- A Note on Weights, Currencies and Measures
- Introduction
- 1 Origin Stories
- 2 The Demands of Humanity
- 3 Community of Practice
- 4 Febrile Situations
- 5 Harvests of Change
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 1 exposes and examines the movement of narratives, and cultural imaginaries, about cinchona across the Atlantic World around 1800, by studying the circulation of ‘origin myths’ about how the ‘wonderful’, ‘admirable’ medicinal properties of cinchona had first come to the knowledge of mankind. The chapter scrutinizes the various story elements present in contemporary origin stories – the natives’ alleged secrecy, closeness to nature and unlettered simplicity – exposing them as widespread, and long-lived, topoi, woven from the epistemic fabric of the Atlantic World. Laying ground for subsequent chapters, it argues that these topoi ultimately served to make sense of, promote and propagate the bark’s ‘wonderful properties’ – as much, or more so, as the discerning appreciation of its supposed medical ‘effects’, or the support of prominent regal and religious advocates historians have tended to privilege in their accounts of the bark’s rise.
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- Information
- A Singular RemedyCinchona Across the Atlantic World, 1751–1820, pp. 30 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020