"A Compleat History of Druggs." [Jan. 2011 Update]

"The study of simple drugs is a study so agreeable, and so exalted in its own nature, that it has been the pursuit of the first geniuses of all ages." - Pierre Pomet, Histoire generale des drogues (Paris, 1684).

"A book of high character was published in France at the conclusion of the seventeenth century, the General History of Drugs, by Monsieur Pomet, chief apothecary to the King... In this book M. Pomet expressed great indignation at the spirit of adulteration that had crept into the mummy trade. It was as hard then as now to get one's drugs in any reasonable state of purity." Charles Dickens, Household Words, February 25, 1857

Title page of the first English edition, 1712.

Pierre Pomet's Histoire generale des drogues (1684), translated into English in 1712 as A Compleat History of Druggs, was a manual not only of the substances now identified as 'drugs,' but of a vast range of medicines, intoxicants, narcotics, dyestuffs, spices, foods and animal products. (See my earlier post "A Drug Merchant in Seventeenth Century London" for a sample of what drugs encompassed in the early modern world -- mummies, human skulls, powdered gems and bezoar stones were all in high demand). Although the 17th century witnessed the publication of many guides to drugs and medicines, Pomet's stands out both for its high production values and for its cross-over appeal to a popular reading audience that was hungry for tales of exotic locales, freakish beasts and strange drugs.

Pomet's portrait, from the French edition.

Monsieur Pomet (1658-1699) was the chief druggist to Louis XIV, 'the Sun King,' and also maintained a fashionable private practice in Paris as the proprietor of an apothecary's shop. His book represents a breakthrough in European understandings of the new medicines and natural products being opened up by British, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish expansion into the global tropics. The illustrations, in particular, are an advance on previous works. I plan to make a more in-depth post in the future about early modern theories of drugs -- which were connected closely to magic, spirituality and climate -- but for now I'll just post some of the most striking of the book's illustrations.

Slaves in the West Indies feeding sugar cane into a vertical mill and working a boiler,
which was among the most arduous and dangerous jobs a Caribbean slave could be
burdened with. Sugar was classed as a drug/drogue/droga by early modern European
medical authorities, and played a key role in a number of medical concoctions.

A standout plate from the English translation featuring unicorns. As the captions note,
most hail from John Johnston's 1657 Historiæ Naturalis de Quadrupedibus (see here for
more on this most interesting work of early modern animal lore.)

Bezoar stones were among the most precious substances known to early modern apothecaries, for it was believed that ingesting a tiny morsel of one could cure poisons and plagues. The fact that the fabled bezoar was essentially a hairball found in the viscera of certain goats and llamas did not deter kings, prelates and rich merchants from seeking them out.

Mandrake, Cork and the rare 'Peruvian Bark,' i.e. cinchona, which contains quinine.

This is by far my favorite image from the book, depicting the methods of making and finding mummy medicine -- note the bizarre pyramid at right, which looks vaguely South Asian to me. Unfortunately I couldn't find a detailed scan online.

Another view.

As an aside, I came across two interesting things while researching this post. The first, the bizarre and perhaps mythical 16th century Chinese medicine known as "Mellified Man" (in which one voluntarily overdoses on honey, is buried in same, and then is sold as a medicine) is a topic that I will probably devote a full post to in the months to come if I can find any further information. The second is a wonderful website called "Strange Science" which has a remarkably comprehensive archive of images of strange mammals from the Neolithic to the present here.

For scholarship on Pomet, see Sandra Sherman's "The Exotic World of Pierre Pomet's A Compleat History of Druggs" in Endeavor and an essay by Jordan Kellman in the December 2010 of the excellent new journal Atlantic Studies entitled "Nature, networks, and expert testimony in the colonial Atlantic: The case of cochineal." Those interested in early modern unicorn lore should check out this 2006 BibliOdyssey post on the subject.

A Borgesian Index and Images of the Indies

My apologies for the gap in posts recently - recently I've had to concentrate on my actual work a bit more. But I wanted to share two things: some extracts from the bizarrely detailed index of the seventeenth century buccaneer William Dampier's Voyages (1697) and two gorgeous images of the East Indies from the 1599 Itinerario of Jan Huygen van Linschoten. 

First, the index -- which reminds me a bit of Jorge Luis Borges' famous citation of a fictional

"Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies."

Whoever compiled Dampier's index does not go quite this far, but some of its hair-splitting distinctions are both utterly surreal and at times quite funny (such as the first example below, which distinguishes between "Bells, musical, struck upon, 342" and "Bells, with claws, worshipt, 411.") Its also a testament to the amazing variety of Dampier's observations and writings. Some examples, taken from the Google Books link given above:

In some cases, the index even seems to tell a story, or at least hints of one. The entry for 'night' for instance, has a palpable flavor of the uncanny: 

Now on to Linschoten's beautiful images. A Dutch-born mariner in the service of the Portuguese during the height of their Estado da Índia (the Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean, centered on the city-state of Goa), Jan van Linschoten (1563-1611) was a careful observer of foreign customs. He published his findings in the Netherlands , and in the process helped turn the tide of world trade toward the nascent Dutch Republic by revealing many of the secret spice routes and sea charts of the Portuguese in India, who held a virtual monopoly on key commodities such as cinnamon and pepper at the time.

The following images come from Linschoten's 1599 book of travels, the Itinerario:

"Fusta, which was used by the Portuguese and their enemies, the Malabares, for trading and
warfare." Hand colored engraving.

The main street of the city of Goa, hand-colored illustration. A fascinating image of daily-life
in a colonial capitol, complete with money-changers, merchants, porters and slaves.

The title page of the original Dutch edition.

A Pirate Surgeon in Panama

  It was in the evening when we came to an anchor, and the next morning we fired two guns for the Indians that lived on the Main to come aboard; for by this time we concluded we should hear from our five men that we left in the heart of the country among the Indians, this being about the latter end of August, and it was the beginning of May when we parted from them. According to our expectations the Indians came aboard and brought our friends with them: Mr. Wafer wore a clout about him, and was painted like an Indian; and he was some time aboard before I knew him.
- William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, (London: 1697)

I spent some time doing research in London this summer, and one of the things I was struck by was the large number of manuscripts written by late seventeenth century buccaneers. One is accustomed to thinking of buccaneers and pirates as illiterate sorts, and to a large degree they were -- but ships captains, surgeons and pilots were often exceptions to this rule, and they produced  some of the most fascinating travel narratives I've ever come across. I posted about one of them several months ago - today I want to share a few images and quotes from another that I'm currently working on: Lionel Wafer's A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of Darien (1699, London).

Wafer (1640-1705) sketches out a brief autobiography in the early pages of this book, in which we learn that he served as a surgeon's apprentice on board a number of British trading vessels as a youth, ultimately braving the hazardous voyage to the Indian Ocean on an East India Company merchant ship.  He next (1677) sought his fortunes on the island of Jamaica, at that time a relatively recent possession of the British crown which was beginning to gain a reputation as a place where working class Britons could make their fortune - largely via the savage exploitation of enslaved African sugar plantation laborers. Wafer seems to have worked as a surgeon for a time on the island, but he appears to have yearned for a more glamorous line of work (if that is the correct word), as he enlisted with a pirate expedition in 1679.

A map of the Darien peninsula (modern day Panama) compiled in part from Lionel Wafer's data, and printed to publicize the Darien Scheme (1699).

Wafer's travel narrative increases in pace at this point, since it was a year later, in 1680, that he enlisted with the famed pirate Bartholomew Sharp on a voyage to the South Seas (i.e. the rich Pacific ports of Spanish America) and became close friends with the fascinating buccaneer/naturalist William Dampier. It was in the isthmus of Darien, the land now known as Panama, that Wafer's troubles began. As Dampier related in the manuscript version of the book quoted at the heading of this post, one day in the jungle

our chirurgeon came to a sad disaster[.] [While] drying his powder a carelesse man passed by with his pipe lighted and sett fire to his powder which scalded his knee and reduced him to that condition that he was not able to march[,] wherefore wee allowed him a slave to carry his things being all of us much dissatisfied at the accident.

After a few days painful march, it was decided that Wafer should stay behind with the local Indians and wait for a rescue ship. One did not arrive for over two years, and in the meantime Wafer became fluent in the local indigenous dialect and made some acute observations about central American Indian medical, religious and political practices. In one episode, for instance, he witnessed a medicinal 'bleeding' of the chief's wife, as illustrated below:

In Wafer's manuscript account of the incident, which I had the opportunity to consult at the British Library in London, he portrays himself as a heroic 'civilized' physician who was able to convince the Indian medical practitioners that the European style of bleeding was far superior:

It soe happened that the day after our arrival at the Kings Pallace one of his Queens being indisposed was to be lett blood which their Drs. thus performe[:] The Patient is seated on a Stone in the River and the Doctors with a small bow shoot their arrowes into the naked body of the Patient from head to foote shooting their arrowes as fast as they can not missing any part[.] [B]ut the arrows are gaged soe that they penetrate noe further then wee generally thrust our Lancetts and if they hitt a veine which is fulle of winde and blood spurt out a little they will leape and skip about shewing many antick gestures in triumph of soe great a piece of Arte. I was by and perceiving their Ignorance told the King that if he pleased I would shew him a better way without putting the Patient to Soe much torments[.] ["]Lett me See[,"] Saith he and at his Comand I bound up her Arme with a piece of Barke and with my Lancett breached a veine...

Its rare to find such a detailed account of early modern Indian practices, and despite Wafer's apparent Eurocentrism on this occasion, he is actually a rather fascinating example of a European who appears to have freely adopted the trappings of indigenous American culture. Although he skirts around the fact in his own writings, Dampier's account makes clear that when Wafer was finally 'rescued,' he was found "painted like an Indian" (complete with large nose ring) and, as Dampier puts it, "he was some time aboard before I knew him." This lack of recognition is a striking and revealing detail, since Dampier and Wafer seem to have been extremely close friends.

Here are two other details of the remarkable images from Wafer's book. I encourage you to click to see an enlarged version, as they are highly detailed images (which I present courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library's wonderful Archive of Early American Images):

I know of no decent books on Lionel Wafer, but Anna Neil has written a great essay on William Dampier (which coins the excellent term "Buccaneer Ethnography") that touches on Wafer's story as well. A free online edition of Wafer's New Voyage is available as well. For those searching for a more in-depth scholarly treatment of British buccaneers in central America, I highly recommend Ignacio Gallup-Diaz's The Door of the Seas and the Key to the Universe: Indian Politics and Imperial Rivalry in Darien, 1640-1750.

Witches' Familiars in 17th Century Europe (February 2011 update)

Detail of a witch feeding her familiars. Woodcut, England, late sixteenth century.

The frontispiece (see below) to the witch hunter Mathew Hopkins' infamous pamphlet The Discovery of Witches (London, 1647) is a classic image, and rightly so: few texts better evoke the strangeness of the early modern witch hunt. I suppose the author, publisher and artist expected their early modern readership to feel a chill when they gazed upon this crude woodcut depicting the moon-eyed familiars of a coven of witches that Hopkins claimed to have discovered in Essex, but to my modern eyes these little creatures are strangely endearing. I'm especially fond of little Newes (see lower left corner), who, Hopkins noted briskly, was "like a Polcat."

Some details:

Here's Hopkins' explanation from The Discovery of Witches itself, which is available online for free as a Guttenberg E-Book:

The Discoverer [Hopkins] never travelled far for it, but in March 1644 he had some seven or eight of that horrible sect of Witches living in the Towne where he lived... who every six weeks in the night (being alwayes on the Friday night) had their meeting close by his house and had their severall solemne sacrifices there offered to the Devill, one of which this discoverer heard speaking to her Imps one night, and bid them goe to another Witch, who was thereupon apprehended, and searched, by women who had for many yeares knowne the Devills marks, and found to have three teats about her, which honest women have not: so upon command from the Justice they were to keep her from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that time to see her familiars, which the fourth night she called in by their severall names, and told them what shapes, a quarter of an houre before they came in, there being ten of us in the roome, the first she called was
1. Holt, who came in like a white kitling.
2. Jarmara, who came in like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all, she said she kept him fat, for she clapt her hand on her belly and said he suckt good blood from her body.
3. Vinegar Tom, who was like a long-legg'd Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe, with a long taile and broad eyes, who when this discoverer spoke to, and bade him goe to the place provided for him and his Angels, immediately transformed himselfe into the shape of a child of foure yeeres old without a head, and gave halfe a dozen turnes about the house, and vanished at the doore.
4. Sack and Sugar, like a black Rabbet.
5. Newes, like a Polcat. All these vanished away in a little time. Immediately after this Witch confessed severall other Witches, from whom she had her Imps, and named to divers women where their marks were, the number of their Marks, and Imps, and Imps names, as Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peckin the Crown, Grizzel, Greedigut, &c. which no mortall could invent; and upon their searches the same Markes were found, the same number, and in the same place, and the like confessions from them of the same Imps...

Detail of a witch riding a goat-familiar from Hans Baldung's 1510 woodcut "Witches' Sabbath."

Female witches were not the only ones who kept pets with supernatural powers -- in the very same year that Hopkins made his supposed discovery, a bizarre pamphlet was published attributing magical powers to Boy, the famous war poodle of the Royalist Cavalier Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The crowded title page notes that the fearsome canine was only felled thanks to the counter-acting magical powers of a "Valiant Souldier, who had skill in Necromancy":

Observant readers will also note the final title line, in which it is revealed that Boy -- "the strange breed of this Shagg'd Cavalier" -- was in fact "whelp'd of a Malignant Water-Witch."  It was said that Boy could catch bullets in his mouth, find hidden treasure and foretell the future, and his powers were so respected by his fellow Royalist soldiers that the dog was promoted to the rank of Sergeant-Major-General!

Another contemporary depiction of Prince Rupert and the witch-dog Boy, from the anti-Royalist pamphlet "The Cruel Practices of Prince Rupert" (London, 1643). For more see the Pepys Diary site's entry on Rupert.

Brian Levack's The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe is a good introduction to the subject of early modern witchcraft as a whole. For more on the specific topic of familiars see this essay by James A. Serpell. Stuart Clark's Thinking with Demons brilliantly elucidates the ideologies behind the witch craze. More works by Hans Baldung, the Dürer pupil who produced some of the most vivid and strange contemporary European depictions of sorcery, can be seen here.

A Drug Merchant in Seventeenth Century London

John Jacob Berlu's wonderfully titled The Treasury of Drugs Unlock'd (London, 1690) is a rare book, and I can find very little information on either the work itself or the author, who was apparently a London merchant of drugs, spices and other exotic commodities. I took the opportunity to look at the copy in the British Library and found the following.

Title page of the first edition.

The book is essentially an encyclopedia or almanac of medicinal drugs, with around two hundred entries arranged in alphabetical order. Its important to remember that Berlu's concept of what the word 'drug' meant and our own differ considerably -- merely witness the fact that pine nuts, pistachios, "white sugar candy" and iron shavings, among others, are included in Berlu's list of drugs used by physicians and apothecaries alongside familiar names like cannabis, opium and coffee.

Extracted here are a few of the more engaging entries. I'm especially fascinated/appalled by the three entries on the trade in edible human remains!

Ambra Grisea… it is of a most fragrant, pleasant smell, clear from any dross… running a hot Needle slightly into it, there will issue out a Fatness of a fragrant scent; ‘tis brought from the East and West Indies (viz. Bermoodos, &c.) and sometimes tis found in near parts adjacent… (6)

Adeps Hominis. The Fat of Man is gathered from those parts of Men, as Suet is made of other Creatures, and Hogs Lard from Hogs, of which the sweetest and cleanest is to be preferred. (2).

Bang. Is an Herb which comes from Bantam in the East Indies, of an Infatuating quality and pernicious use (18).

Cranium Humanum. The Scull of a Man ought to be of such an one which dieth a violent Death, (as War, or criminal Execution) and never buried: Therefore, those of Ireland are here best esteemed, being very clean and white, and often covered over with Moss (35).

Mumia. The Arabian Mumia, is a Liquor sweating out of dead Bodies, being Imbalmed with Aloes, Myrrh and Balsom, &c. wrapped up in Cere-cloths: Sometimes whole Bodies may be seen, with Hands, Legs and Toes, perfectly intire, being of a black colour: And that Mumia which is most gummy or bituminous, is best esteemed. ‘Tis brought from Chio and Egypt (83).

Pretty macabre stuff! As an aside, I love the fact that Berlu advises his reader to seek out skulls of "one which dieth a violent Death" in Ireland.

But Berlu had a good cause in mind when advising his readers where to find oily mummies, moss covered skulls, cannabis and "Fat of Man," among other desirable goods. I sign off today's post with a quote from his prologue, which contains some interesting hints of the travails of a drug merchant in seventeenth century London:

Courteous and Benevolent READER. Certainly nothing can promote Trade more than for Men to learn and understand those Commodities and Merchandizes; they do intend to Trade in; which gives me hopes that this Treatise will be kindly accepted of, and that those of the Trade of Druggist will be more Ingenuous than that Popish Tenet, to keep the People in Ignorance. The Price Currant which is weekly published of Drugs, may prejudice, this cannot: For the more Men understand the goodness of a Commodity, the more value they will set upon it.
    To avoid also those dangers (of prohibited Goods) by which I have been (as it were) shipwracked, you will easily discern the places of growth, being mentioned almost to every Commodity, and thereby avoid those Rocks and Perils by which I have fore-gone a good estale. Vale. 

Images from the British Library Illuminated Manuscripts

I leave today for three weeks of research in the UK. In preparation I've been poking around the British Library's online catalogs, and found that they have apparently digitized sample images from all of their illuminated manuscripts. Below are a few of the more interesting:

Randle Holme, John Holme,"Man in Profile,"  Sketchbook and household ledger. England, N. W. (Chester); c. 1688-1692

Anon., Discourse on Geomancy Dedicated to King James II, England, c. 1685.

 Anon. Seven Emblems, France, late 17th c.

 Anon. Allegorical Designs Relating to Political Events in the Reigns of King James I and Charles I. England, c. 1628.

The "Natural Language of the Hand" and the Early History of Educating the Deaf

An illustration from John Bulwer's treatise on hand gestures, Chirologia.

John Bulwer (1606-1656) was an English physician and natural philosopher who produced five remarkable books in a thirteen year period following the outbreak of the English Civil War. Although he wrote on a wide range of different topics, he is best known today for his work in educating the deaf and his advocacy for an educational institution he called "The Dumbe mans academie."

Bulwer's first work (featuring a typically prolix early modern title) was Chirologia: or the naturall language of the hand. Composed of the speaking motions, and discoursing gestures thereof. Whereunto is added Chironomia: or, the art of manuall rhetoricke. Consisting of the naturall expressions, digested by art in the hand, as the chiefest instrument of eloquence (London: Thomas Harper, 1644). 

An illustration from Chirologia (1644), portraying a range of rhetorical hand gestures.

In this work Bulwer seems to have been inspired by Francis Bacon's characterization of hand gestures as "manual hieroglyphics," as well as by a more general fascination with universal languages, translation and communication that pervaded English learned discourse in the Civil War and Restoration periods (see especially John Wilkins' contemporary work toward a "Philosophical Language"). Hand gestures, Bulwer wrote, 

being the only speech that is natural to Man... may well be called the Tongue and General language of Human Nature, which, without teaching, men in all regions of the habitable world doe at the first sight most easily understand.

The overarching aim of this work, however, was made clear by his second book, which explicitly dealt with the education of the deaf:

Philicophus bears a remarkable frontispiece illustration which appears to show a deaf man conducting music from a cello viola de gamba* through his teeth.

* Thank you to Warren Stewart for this correction. 

Next Bulwer published Pathomyatomia, one of the first works to study the action of the muscles of the face in producing expressions (presaging the rather gruesome electrical experiments of nineteenth century French neurologist Duchenne de Buologne).

Bulwer's final published work features what may be my favorite book title of all time: Anthropometamorphosis: Man Transform’d, or the Artificial Changeling. Historically presented, in the mad and cruel Gallantry, foolish Bravery, ridiculous Beauty, filthy Fineness, and loathesome Loveliness of most Nations, fashioning & altering their Bodies from the Mould intended by Nature. With a Vindication of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of Nature, and an Appendix of the Pedigree of the English Gallant. (London: J. Hardesty, 1650). This fascinating book is something I'll write about at a later date [April 2012 update: see here] since I suspect it will find its way into my dissertation research. For now, I present an image from it which indicates something of the book's bizarre character: 

Finally, a note on the Iberian origin of much of Bulwer's work, and of the study of deafness and gesture in seventeenth century Europe more generally. The work of Juan Pablo Bonet (1573-1633), an Aragonese priest and writer of the Spanish Golden Age, predated Bulwer's writings by some forty years, and probably marks the first efforts to educate the deaf to appear in print. 

Juan Pablo Bonet's Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (1620).

The title page of Bonet's work features an allegorical image that I like quite a bit: a lock binding a man's mouth, labelled 'nature,' being picked by a hand labelled 'art.' Some sample images from the same book:

I couldn't find any publicly available works by Bulwer online, but Chirologia or The Natural Language of the Hand is available in a 2003 reprint edition. However, thanks to the Bilblioteca Digital Hispánica, Bonet's Reducción has been scanned and made public here.