Clare Griffin
I am currently working on the medical drug trade in the early modern world, in particular focusing on Russia.
I am the editor of H-EarlySlavic https://networks.h-net.org/h-earlyslavic an academic discussion network open to everyone interested in the Early Slavic lands.
I am the editor of H-EarlySlavic https://networks.h-net.org/h-earlyslavic an academic discussion network open to everyone interested in the Early Slavic lands.
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Both the early modern medical drug trade, and Russian medicine, have previously received substan-
tial 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 re-
veal 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.
Keywords:
Russia; Early Modern; Drug Trade; Global History; European Medicine
dominated by Western Europeans from the 1480s, but in the early eighteenth century new licensing arrangements solidified the presence of these foreigners in the wider Russian medical world. Foreign medical practitioners took advantage of this development, aiming works at an increasingly large proportion of Russian literate society. These works, along with satirical and religious works emulating or deriding medical texts, show how by the 1720s the limits of literate medicine in Russia lay not at the edges of official court medicine, but rather at the edges
of literate society.
Both the early modern medical drug trade, and Russian medicine, have previously received substan-
tial 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 re-
veal 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.
Keywords:
Russia; Early Modern; Drug Trade; Global History; European Medicine
dominated by Western Europeans from the 1480s, but in the early eighteenth century new licensing arrangements solidified the presence of these foreigners in the wider Russian medical world. Foreign medical practitioners took advantage of this development, aiming works at an increasingly large proportion of Russian literate society. These works, along with satirical and religious works emulating or deriding medical texts, show how by the 1720s the limits of literate medicine in Russia lay not at the edges of official court medicine, but rather at the edges
of literate society.