Russia and the Medical Drug Trade in the Seventeenth Century.

Clare Griffin

doi:10.1093/shm/hkw106

Abstract

SummaryThis article deals with the trade in medicines into Russia in the seventeenth century. Both the early modern medical drug trade, and Russian medicine, have previously received substantial attention, but no work has thus far been undertaken on the Russian angle of the drug trade. Drawing on previously unused documents, this article traces the kinds of drugs acquired by the Moscow court. In contrast to the dominant view of official Russian medicine as divorced from native healing practices and fundamentally reliant upon Western European trends, these documents reveal that drugs were sourced as locally as Moscow markets, and from as far afield as East Asia and the Americas, but that not all drugs were accepted. As many of these imports came through Western European markets, this article also sheds further light on what drugs were available there, demonstrating the great diversity of drugs traded in early modern Europe.

Highlights

Devoting attention to documents relating to medical drugs reveals aspects of early modern Russian medicine, and aspects of early modern European medicine more generally, that other sources cannot
Medical drugs in Russia tell us about the relationship between official and unofficial medicine, and revise our ideas of the relationship of Russian medicine with medicine elsewhere in Europe, and the world
Histories of early modern Russian medicine have almost exclusively focused on the Apothecary Chancery, and understandably so, as the records of that institution represent a substantial collection of medical documents for that period

Summary

Clare Griffin*

Despite significant differences and opposition, there was common ground between official and unofficial Russian medicine, which can be uncovered through close examination of the drug records These documents show a gap between Russian practice and its Western European sources: some drugs popular in Western Europe, notably theriac, were either heavily restricted, or banned outright, at the Moscow court. This article mines these almost untouched sources to revise our understanding of the links, connections and associations and, the conflicts, disconnections and oppositions, of official seventeenth-century Russian medicine with the wider world.

Russian Medicine

Local and Imperial Drugs

The European Connection

The Far East and the Spice Trade

The Americas and the Problem of New Drugs

Conclusion