Russia and the Medical Drug Trade in the Seventeenth Century

22 Pages·2017·0.18 MB·English

SocialHistoryofMedicineVol.31,No.1pp.2–23
Russia and the Medical Drug Trade in the
Seventeenth Century
Clare Griffin*
D
o
w
n
Summary. This article deals with the trade in medicines into Russia in the seventeenth century. lo
a
Boththeearlymodernmedicaldrugtrade,andRussianmedicine,havepreviouslyreceivedsubstan- d
e
tDiaralwatitnegntoionn,prbeuvtionuoslywournkusheadsdthoucsumfaernbtes,enthuisndaertritcaleketnraocensththeeRkuisnsdiasnoafndgrluegosfatchqeudirreudgbtyratdhee. d fro
m
Moscowcourt.IncontrasttothedominantviewofofficialRussianmedicineasdivorcedfromnative h
healingpracticesandfundamentallyreliantuponWesternEuropeantrends,thesedocumentsre- ttp
s
vealthatdrugsweresourcedaslocallyasMoscowmarkets,andfromasfarafieldasEastAsiaand ://a
the Americas, but that not all drugs were accepted. As many of these imports came through c
a
WesternEuropeanmarkets,thisarticlealsoshedsfurtherlightonwhatdrugswereavailablethere, d
e
demonstratingthegreatdiversityofdrugstradedinearlymodernEurope. m
ic
.o
Keywords: Russia;EarlyModern;DrugTrade;GlobalHistory;EuropeanMedicine u
p
.c
Russiaintheseventeenthcenturyhadaparticularlyunusualformofofficialmedicine:un- om
til1654,allmedicalpractitionersemployedatcourtorinthearmywereforeignersfrom /s
h
WesternEurope.1Evenafterthatdate,Russiansmadeuponlyasmallproportionofmed- m/a
ical practitioners until the late eighteenth century.2 Similarly, the majority of medical rtic
booksavailableinRussiawereimportedfromWesternEurope,translatedfromWestern le-a
European texts, or compiled from Western European sources according to Western bs
Europeanmodels.3Othercountriesalsobroughtinmedicaltextsandpractitionersfrom tra
c
abroad,buttoimportsomuchofofficialmedicalpracticewascertainlyatypical.Russia, t/3
1
then,seemsagoodcandidateforare-examinationoftheissueofearlymodernmedical /1
/2
drugs,wheretheuseoflocalversusforeignproductshasbecomeacentralquestion,as /2
6
7
0
3
5
6
b
y
*Max-Planck-Institutfu¨rWissenschaftsgeschichte,Boltzmannstraße22,14195Berlin,Deutschland.E-mail:cgrif- g
u
[email protected]. e
s
ClareGriffincompletedherthesisworkonmedicalknowledgeattheseventeenth-centuryRussiancourtatthe t o
SchoolofSlavonicandEastEuropeanStudies,UniversityCollegeLondon.Havingpreviouslyheldapostasa n
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of 06
Cambridge,sheiscurrentlyaPostdoctoralFellowattheMaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience,Berlin.She A
p
wpaorrtkicsuolanrlmyiendtihcieneco,tnhteexgtloofbathlemeeadrilcyamldorduegrntraRduess,ipanraectmicpailrek.nowledge,translationandinformationtechnologies, ril 2
0
1
9
1After1654thedepartmentbegantrainingRussiansas 2Andreas Renner, Russische Autokratie und europ€ai-
medical practitioners. The reasons for starting the sche Medizin. Organisierter Wissenstransfer in 18.
trainingprogrammeareunknown,butitmaybesig- Jahrhundert(Stuttgart:FranzSteiner,2010),55.
nificantthat1654sawthestartoftheRusso-Polish 3Clare Griffin, ‘In Search of an Audience: Popular
war (1654–67), as well as plague outbreaks. Maria PharmaciesandtheLimitsofLiterateMedicineinLate
Unkovskaya, ‘Learning Foreign Mysteries: Russian Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Russia’,
PupilsoftheAptekarskiiPrikaz,1650–1700’,Oxford Bulletin for the History of Medicine, 2015, 89,
SlavonicPapers,1997,30,1–20. 705–32.
©TheAuthor2016.PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPressonbehalfoftheSocietyfortheSocialHistoryofMedicine.
ThisisanOpenAccessarticledistributedunderthetermsoftheCreativeCommonsAttributionLicense(http://creative-
commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),whichpermitsunrestrictedreuse,distribution,andreproductioninanymedium,
providedtheoriginalworkisproperlycited.
doi:10.1093/shm/hkw106
AdvanceAccesspublished16November2016
RussiaandtheMedicalDrugTradeintheSeventeenthCentury 3
thewholeofficialmedicalsystemuntil1654(andevenafterthat)wasarrangedaround
importing medicine. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that so little attention has been
devotedtomedicaldrugimportstoRussia;althoughdrugshavereceivedperipheralat-
tentioninworksfocusingonotheraspectsofRussianmedicineortrade,noonehasever
usedtheserecordsasagrouptoshedlightonRussianinvolvementintheearlymodern
medicaldrugtrade.4
ThereareproblemsintacklingtheRussianquestion.Veryfewcustomsrecords,soim-
D
portanttotradestudies,areextantforRussia;notasingleseventeenth-centurycustom o
w
bookforthevitalearlymodernRussianportofArkhangelsksurvives.5Suchdocumentary nlo
a
problemsshiftthestudyoftheRussianmedicaldrugtradeinaspecificdirection,towards d
e
therecordsofthecourtmedicaldepartment,theApothecaryChancery.Thisdepartment d fro
iscentraltoRussianmedicineofthisperiod,andmuchhasbeenwrittenaboutitsinstitu- m
tional history, and its medical practitioners, but not its medical drugs.6 Records for the http
Apothecary Chancery provide evidenceregardingwhatwasimported for official useat s
court.TheyalsogivesomelimitedinsightintothewiderRussianmarket,asfromatleast ://ac
a
the1630stheApothecaryChanceryalsosuppliedthearmy,from1672ranashopselling d
e
m
medicinestoMuscovites,andalsopurchasedsuppliesfromlocalmarketsthroughoutthe ic
century.InsomewaystheserecordsfollowwhatwealreadyknowaboutofficialRussian .o
u
p
medicine:medicaldrugswereimportedintoRussiafromthesameports,acrossthesame .c
o
period,and ofteninthe verysame ships,asforeignmedical practitioners.Similarly,the m
/s
volumesofdrugsbroughtinofficially,likethenumbersofforeignpractitioners,weresuf- h
m
ficientforthecourt,butcanonlyhaveprovidedalimitedsupplytothewidermarket.In /a
other ways the picture of early modern Russian medicine provided by medical drug re- rtic
le
cords is rather different: whereas practitioners came from a rather small group of -a
b
Europeancountries,drugsbroughtintoRussiaoriginatedfromasfarafieldasEastAsia stra
andtheAmericas.AstheRussiancourtwasacquiringasubstantialproportionofitssup- c
t/3
pliesfromWesternEurope,thisthenalsoprovidesaninsightintothenatureofmedical 1
/1
/2
/2
4Theonlyworkstodevoteattentiontothedrugtrade del,1904);N.Ia.Novombergskii,Nekotoryespornye 67
0
are John Appleby, ‘Ivan the Terrible to Peter the voprosy po istorii vrachebnogo dela v do-Petrovskoi 3
5
Great:BritishFormativeInfluenceonRussia’sMedico- Rusi(StPetersburg:TipografiiaMinisterstvavnutren- 6
ApothecarySystem’,MedicalHistory,1983,27,289– nykhdel,1903);M.B.Mirskii,MeditsinaRossiiX–XX by
304;V.N.Shkunov,‘Aptekarskiiprikazivneshniaia vekov.Ocherkiistorii(Moscow:ROSSPEN,2005);M. g
u
torgovliaRossiivXVII–nachaleXVIIIvv.’,Moskovskoe B.Mirskii,OcherkiistoriimeditsinyvRossiiXVI–XVIII e
s
nauchnoe obozrenie, 2011, 6, 2–3; B. Z. Nanzatov vv. (Vladikavkaz: Reklamno-izdatelskoe agentstvo t o
andM.M.Sodnompilova,‘Lekarstvennyesredstvav GoskomizdataRSO-A,1995);Unkovskaya,‘Learning n
0
torgovo-obmennykh operatsiiakh mezhdu Rossiei, ForeignMysteries’;Maria Unkovskaya,BriefLives:A 6
MongolieiiKitaemvXVII–XIXvv.’,Vestniknauchnogo HandbookofMedicalPractitionersinMuscovy,1620– A
p
t2s0e1n4tr,a4S,i9b0ir–sk8o.gootdeleniiaRossiiskoiakademiinauk, 1D7u0m1sch(Laot,ndAouns:l€anWdieslclchoemreMeTdruizsint,er1i9m99)M; oSskaabuineer ril 2
0
5Jarmo T. Kotilaine, Russia’s Foreign Trade and Russland(Stuttgart:FranzSteinerVerlag,2006);Eve 19
Economic Expansion in the Seventeenth Century: Levin, ‘The Administration of Western Medicine in
WindowsoftheWorld(Leiden:Brill,2005),11. Seventeenth-CenturyRussia’,inJarmoKoitlaineand
6See Wilhelm Richter, Geschichte der Medicin in MarshallPoe,eds,ModernizingMuscovy.Reformand
Russland3vols(Moscow:N.S.Vsevoloski,1813–17); SocialChangeinSeventeenthCenturyRussia(London
N. P.Zagoskin,Vrachii vrachebnoedelov starinnoi andNewYork:RoutledgeCurzon,2004),353–79;M.
Rossii(Kazan:TipografiiaImperatorskogouniversiteta, Sokolovskii, Kharakter i znachenie deiate(cid:2)lnosti
1891);N.Ia.Novombergskii,Chertyvrachebnoiprak- Aptekarskogo prikaza (St Petersburg: P. P. Soikin,
tikevMoskovskoiRusi(kultur’no-istoricheskiiocherk) 1904).
(St Petersburg: Tipografiia Ministerstva vnutrennykh
4 ClareGriffin
drugs sales in Russia’s major trading partners, most notably Hamburg, Lu¨beck,
AmsterdamandLondon.Workonthedrugtradehasoftenfocusedonthecontinuation
of the East Asian spice trade and the importation of new American plants. Russian re-
cords strongly support the idea that both of these were major factors in seventeenth-
centuryEuropeanmedicaldrugs.
The records also show a greater degree of similarity between official and unofficial
medicine than has otherwisebeen thought.Recent studiesonunofficial medicinehave
D
focusedonthepractitioners,whowereRussians,ornon-RussiansubjectsoftheRussian o
w
empire,andsounliketheforeign,courtlypractitioners.Theseunofficialpractitionersof- nlo
a
tengotcaughtupinwitchcrafttrialsovertheirpractice,somethingthat,despitepersis- d
e
tent rumours of their magical practices, the court practitioners never endured.7 The d fro
private markets on which medicines were sold were investigated multiple times across m
thelateseventeenthcentury,andthenbannedin1701.8Thestoryofunofficialandoffi- http
cialRussianmedicinebasedonsuchmaterialisoneofdifferenceandopposition.Instark s
contrast, medical drug records show the Apothecary Chancery buying supplies from ://ac
a
thesemarkets,andsodemonstratehowsimilarthedrugpracticesofofficialandunoffi- d
e
m
cial Russian medicine may have been. Despite significant differences and opposition, ic
therewascommongroundbetweenofficialandunofficialRussianmedicine,whichcan .o
u
p
be uncovered through close examination of the drug records. Conversely, these docu- .c
o
ments also show a gap between Russian practice and its Western European sources: m
/s
somedrugspopularinWesternEurope,notablytheriac,wereeitherheavilyrestricted,or h
m
bannedoutright,attheMoscowcourt.Thisarticleminesthesealmostuntouchedsour- /a
ces to revise our understanding of the links, connections and associations and, con- rtic
le
versely, the conflicts, disconnections and oppositions, of official seventeenth-century -a
b
Russianmedicinewiththewiderworld. stra
c
t/3
1
Russia and the World, circa 1600 /1
/2
There is now a significant literature on the history of globalisation, global trade and /2
6
globallinksintheearlymodernperiod.9Onecentralpointthathasemergedfromthese 70
3
discussionsistheunevendistributionof,andvariedpricesfor,productsaroundtheearly 56
modern world. This idea has been discussed in the Russian context by Matthew by
g
Romaniello, with regards to Russia’s seventeenth-century ban on the importation of u
e
s
t o
7Eve Levin, ‘Healers and Witches in Early Modern cle.Forsomeassessmentsoftheargumentsoverthe n
0
Russia’,inYelenaMazour-MatusevichandAlexandra start of globalisation, see Giorgio Riello, ‘The 6
S. Korros, eds, Saluting Aron Gurevich: Essays in Globalisation of Cotton Textiles: Indian Cottons, A
p
H(Liesitdoeryn,:BLriiltle,r2a0tu1r0e),,10a5n–d33O.ther Related Subjects EGuiororgpieo,anadntdhePArtalasanntincaWnorPlda,rt1h6a0sa0r–a1t8h5i,0’e,dins,RieTlhloe, ril 2
0
8V.A.Kovrigina,‘AptekiiaptekariMoskvyvtoroipolo- SpinningWorld:AGlobalHistoryOfCottonTextiles, 19
viny XVII—pervoi chetverti XVIII v.’ Vestnik 1200–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
Moskovskogo universiteta seriia 8 Istoriia, 1999, 1, 261–87, see 261–6; and Jan Nederveen Pieterse,
38–70. The decree is published in Polnoe Sobranie ‘PeriodizingGlobalization:HistoriesofGlobalization’,
Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii s 1649 goda 40 vols (St NewGlobalStudies,2012,6,1–25.Foranassessment
Petersburg: Tipografii otdelenia sobstavennoi ego of globalisation and the drug trade, see Benjamin
Imperatoskogo Velichestva kantseliarii, 1830), IV, Breen,‘Portugal,EarlyModernGlobalizationandthe
117. Origins of the Global Drug Trade’, Perspectives on
9Thisliteratureisnowsufficientlylargethatacompre- Europe,2012,42,84–8.
hensivecitationwouldexceedtheboundsofthisarti-
RussiaandtheMedicalDrugTradeintheSeventeenthCentury 5
tobacco.10 Tobacco, a product consumed across the rest of the world, was banned in
Russiafordecades.AlthoughthisbandidnottotallyexcludetobaccofromRussia—for-
eignerscouldimportitfortheirownuse,Siberianpeopleswerepermittedtoconsumeit,
andtherewasrampantsmugglingsponsoredbytheEnglishgovernment—itnevertheless
meant a distinct restriction of the product’s circulation. Russia’s engagement with the
medical drug trade, as with its engagement with tobacco, was an interaction with a
globalphenomenonfundamentallyshapedbylocalconsiderations,inparticularRussia’s
D
experiencesintheseventeenthcentury. o
w
TheRussianempireisanearlymodernphenomenon.Aslateasthefifteenthcentury, nlo
a
‘Russia’wasagroupoftownsheldtogetherbyacommonlanguageandculture,andby d
e
thefilialrelationsoftheprincesofthosetowns.ItwasIvanIII(r.1462–1505),inthevery d fro
latefifteenthcentury,whobroughtthevarioustownsunderthesuzeraintyofMoscow, m
giving Russia its other early modern name of Muscovy. Muscovy then continued to ex- http
pandasapowerinthesixteenthcentury,withIvanIV(r.1547–84)conqueringthekhan- s
atesofKazan’ (1552),Astrakhan’ (1556) and Sibir’ (1580). FollowingthedeathofIvan ://ac
a
IV’ssonandsuccessor,Fedor,in1598,thecountryslidintoaperiodofchaosknownas d
e
m
theTimeofTroubles,inwhichtherealmwasnotentirelyunderthecontrolofthecentre. ic
Havingbeenelectedtothethronein1613,thenewRomanovdynastythenwentabout .o
u
p
consolidating the conquests of the sixteenth century, but added few of their own. .c
o
Perhaps the most famous Romanov was Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725), under whose m
/s
ruleRussiaadoptedthetermImperiia(1721),andemergedasaworldpower.Thisstar- h
m
tling trajectory—from near-collapse in the 1600s to a major role on the world stage in /a
the 1700s—is one reason the seventeenth century has been named as a key, ‘transi- rtic
le
tional’timeforRussia.11 -a
b
During the same period, Russiawasdeveloping itsforeign links.Muscovy conquered stra
many of itsimmediate neighbours toitsEastandSouth,and maintainedsome contact c
t/3
withtheotherEurasianpowers,inparticulartheOttomans,SafavidsandQing.However, 1
/1
these links did not translate to a substantial presence of people from those empires at /2
/2
theRussiancourt.Asubstantialamountoftimeandeffortwasputintodevelopinglinks 6
7
withWesternEuropeanpowers.Threeregionsinparticulardevelopedrelationswiththe 03
5
RussianState:England,theGermanlandsandtheNetherlands.12Partlythisgroupofna- 6
b
tions was determined by geography: all three groups had access to the North Sea and y g
u
the Baltic, through which they could reach the Russian ports of St Nicholas, and e
s
later Arkhangelsk, in the White Sea, and the Baltic ports of Reval and Narva, through t o
n
which goods and travellers could also reach Russia. Religion also played a role. The 0
6
Russians, as Orthodox Christians, were suspicious of the Catholic Church, a suspicion A
p
thatwascompoundedbytheirlong-termrivalrywithCatholicPoland-Lithuania.Notably, ril 2
many of the European regions with which Russia maintained strong links were 0
1
9
Protestant.IncontrasttothelimitednumberofpeoplefromEurasianempirespresentin
10Matthew P. Romaniello, ‘Through the Filter of 11SeeforexampleKotilaine,Russia’sForeignTrade,vii.
Tobacco: The Limits of Global Trade in the Early 12Kotilaine,Russia’sForeignTrade,64.
ModernWorld’,ComparativeStudiesinSocietyand
History,2007,49,914–37.
6 ClareGriffin
Moscow, there were increasingly substantial numbers of Western Europeans living and
workingthere.
ThiswasreflectedinthekindsofforeignexpertfoundinMoscow.Thecourtrecruited
increasingnumbersofsuchexperts,inparticularpeopleskilledinmedicine,warfare,fire-
arms production, mining and construction. These were often recruited through diplo-
maticandtradelinkswithEurope,andsomanyoftheseexpertswereEnglish,Dutchand
German Protestants, although other nationalities, and for that matter, some Catholics,
D
werealsopresent.13ResearchbyA.P.Oparinahasshownthatthesemen,forthemost o
w
part,livedrathercomfortablelivesinMoscow’sforeignquarters,beingwellpaid,having nlo
theirowncommunitiesandchurches,andevenputtingonplaysineachothers’homes.14 ad
e
UnlikemostRussians,whorarelyhadlinkswithforeignlands,theseMoscow-basedfor- d fro
eignerskept,andwereofficiallyencouragedtokeep,linkswiththeirhomegovernments m
and with other experts in their field based elsewhere in Europe. These personal links http
wereasvitaltoshapingRussia’simportsofmedicinesashigh-leveldiplomaticcontacts. s
://a
c
a
Russian Medicine de
m
Theimportanceofthesediplomatic,mercantileandpersonallinksareimmediatelyobvi- ic
.o
ousinthepractitionersofofficialRussianmedicine.Fromthe1480son,theRussiancourt u
p
preferredtoemployWesternEuropeanmedicalpractitionersovernativehealers.Bythe .c
o
m
seventeenth century, the activities of foreign medical practitioners at the Russian court
/s
had been formalised as a part of the department known as the Apothecary Chancery, hm
whichexisteduntil1714,whenitwasreplacedbytheMedicalChancellery.15Theeduca- /a
tional programme started in 1654 did train Russians to act as official medical practi- rticle
tioners,butonlyasapothecariesandsurgeons,notphysicians.16In1701,PetertheGreat -a
b
s
established legislation for private apothecaries to be licensed by the state for the first tra
c
time, and the first two men to be so licensed were foreign medical practitioners, who t/3
also worked for the Apothecary Chancery.17 Sabine Dumschat provides statistics as to 1/1
theoriginsoftheseforeignmedicalpractitioners:Polandprovidedanumberofsurgeons, /2
/2
butmostphysiciansandothermedicalpractitionerswerefromEngland,theNetherlands 67
0
or the German lands, Russia’s key Western European contacts.18 It was these foreign 3
5
6
medicalpractitionerswhoprovidedthecruciallinkfortheRussiancourt’sacquisitionof b
y
foreignmateriamedica. g
u
Whilstthekindsofmedicalpractitionerbeingusedremainedbroadlystableacrossthe e
s
seventeenth century, the Apothecary Chancery’s list of patients fluctuated. The tsar’s t o
n
familyandhigh-levelcourtiersalwayshadaccesstosuchservices,apartfromcaseswhen 0
6
nobles who had fallen out of favour were temporarily banned from using the depart- A
p
ment.19 From at least the 1630s, army servitors could also petition for treatment, and ril 2
0
1
9
13Dumschat,Ausl€andischeMediziner,101. Central Administration’, Russian History, 2009, 36,
14T. A. Oparina, Inozemtsy v Rossii XVI–XVII vv. 459–529, 501; John T. Alexander, ‘Medical
(Moscow:Progress-Traditsiia,2007). DevelopmentinPetrineRussia’,Canadian-American
15MariaUnkovskayacitesadocumentconfirmingthe SlavicStudies,1974,VIII,198–221.
existence of the aptechnaia izba in 1572: 16Unkovskaya,‘LearningForeignMysteries’.
Unkovskaya,‘Learning Foreign Mysteries’,4–5; see 17Kovrigina,‘Aptekiiaptekari’.
also Levin, ‘Administration’, 365; Dumschat, 18Dumschat,Ausl€andischeMediziner,101.
Ausl€andische Mediziner; Peter B. Brown, ‘How 19Such was the case for members of the defeated
Muscovy Governed: Seventeenth-Century Russian Naryshkinfaction,thelosersinadynasticstruggle,
RussiaandtheMedicalDrugTradeintheSeventeenthCentury 7
field surgeons were sent out from the department to be deployed with army regi-
ments.20In1672,thedepartmentbegantosellmedicinestoallMuscovites,withprovi-
sions made for those who wanted medicines but could not afford them.21 There were
alsosomeeffortstoexpandofficialmedicineoutsidethecapital,withattemptstosetup
pharmacies in Vologda and Kazan.22 By the late seventeenth century, centrally located
Muscovites,andRussiansinservicetothearmy,hadatleastthepossibilityofaccessing
officialRussianmedicine.
D
Thisofficialmedicinehasleftusawealthofdocuments.Muchworkhasalreadybeen o
w
doneonthematerialspertainingtothemedicalstaffofthedepartment,andtoitsinsti- nlo
tutional history.23 However, large numbers of documents remained virtually unused, in ad
e
particularthoserelatingtomedicaldrugs.Inlargepartduetofearsofpoisoning,theac- d fro
quisition, storage and usage of consumable medicines were carefully tracked and re- m
corded.Thesedocumentsareextremelyvaluabletohistoriansofthemedicaldrugtrade: http
trade records often gloss over medical products, whether medicines, equipment or s
books,subsumingthemundergeneralcategories,whereasRussiancourtdocumentson ://ac
a
medicine do the exact opposite, tracking every ounce of every substance brought into d
e
m
thedepartment,whereitwaskept,how itwas prepared and bywhom, and towhom ic
thefinalproductwasgiven.Moreover,theserecordsalsogiveinsightintowhichmedi- .o
u
p
cineswereacceptableorunacceptable:allmedicalpractitionerssworeanoathpromising .c
o
faithfulservice,anoathwhichdetailspreciselywhattheycould,orcouldnot,do.Russian m
/s
officialmedicalrecordsthusgiveavitalandfascinatinginsightintoearlymodernmedical h
m
drugs. /a
Despitetheimportanceofofficialmedicine,andthegreatinterestofdocumentscom- rtic
le
ingfromofficialsources,weshouldrememberthatofficialmedicinewasalsolimited.For -a
b
peopleintheprovincesinparticularitwasalmostcompletelyoutofreach.Giventhesize stra
ofthedepartment,itisalsounlikelythatitcouldhaveevencompletelyprovidedforthe c
t/3
needs of Moscow. We also know that even those Russians who had access to official 1
/1
Russianmedicinedidnotcompletelyabandonlocalpractices:BorisIvanovichMorozov,a /2
/2
former head of the Apothecary Chancery, simultaneously consulted both an unofficial 6
7
practitioner in his own employ and the Apothecary Chancery physician Samuel Collins 03
5
duringhisfinalillnessin1662.24ApothecaryChancerydocumentsshowtheexistenceof 6
b
a number of private traders on markets, in particular in Moscow, Arkhangelsk and the y g
u
Western border town of Mogilev, selling either raw ingredients which could be made e
s
into medicines, or indeed the medicines themselves.25 Unofficial medicine was a huge t o
n
0
6
A
p
ALe.viSn.,‘MAdatmveineivstraantidonK’,.3P6.2.Naryshkin, in 1677. See 23FXo–rXrXecevenktowv;orkUnoknotvhsiksa,ysae,eMBriiresfkiiL,ivMese;ditDsuinmasRcohsasti,i ril 2
0
20Document dated 1632 recording medicines and a Ausl€andischerMediziner;Levin,‘TheAdministration 19
fieldsurgeonbeingsenttothearmy.RussianState ofWesternMedicine’.
ArchiveofAncientDocuments,Moscow[henceforth 24Levin, ‘Healer and Witches’, 125–7; N. Ia
RGADA] f. 143, collection of the Apothecary Novombergskii,MaterialypoistoriimeditsinyvRossii,
Chancery,op.1,ed.khr.114. 5 vols (St Petersburg: M. M. Stasiulevich, 1905), I,
21Levin,‘Administration’,357. 12–13.
22Levin, ‘Administration’, 357; Unkovskaya, ‘Foreign 25Kovrigina, ‘Apteki i aptekari’, writes about the
Mysteries’,33;N.E.Mamonov,Materialydliaistorii Moscowmarkets.
medistiny v Rossii 4 vols (St Petersburg: Tipografiia
M.M.Stasiulevich,1881),III,899–901.
8 ClareGriffin
part ofRussianhealing practices,apparently taking ongreatersignificanceinprovincial
centres,and,mostlikely,ruralareas,farfromtheApothecaryChancery’sambit.Indeed,
AndreasRennerhasarguedthat,althoughhistoriansregularlyfocusonofficialmedicine,
with unofficial medicine seen as ‘marginal’, in reality it was the other way round.
Unofficialmedicinewasthenorm,analmosttotallyunchallengeddominantforceinhow
Russians healed themselves. Official medicine, in both the seventeenth and the eigh-
teenthcenturies,couldnothopetocompete.26
D
One problem for historians has been how to access this unofficial medicine. o
w
Practitioners were commonly not literate, and even if they were, they did not keep re- nlo
a
cords.AlmosttheonlywayRussianunofficialhealersenterthehistoricalrecordisintrials, d
e
asituationinwhichwenecessarilyonlygetapartial,skewedandfundamentallynegative d fro
pictureoftheiractivities.Nevertheless,EveLevinhasmadegreatuseofsuchdocuments m
toopenupwhatwecanknowaboutunofficialRussianhealingoftheseventeenthcen- http
tury.27Analmostunexploredsetofdocumentsrelatingtounofficialpracticecomesfrom s
the Apothecary Chancery. As that department sourced some of its raw ingredients for ://ac
a
medicines locally, from markets both in Moscow and further afield in the empire, d
e
m
ApothecaryChancerypurchaselistscanalsotellusaboutunofficialmedicine.Inconsid- ic
eringtheRussiandrugtradefromthissource,wecandrawconclusionsnotonlyabout .o
u
p
thenatureofmedicineatcourt,butalsoregardingthenatureofunofficialmedicine,and .c
o
howitmayhaveco-existedwithofficialmedicine. m
/s
h
m
/a
Local and Imperial Drugs rtic
le
ManystudieshavebeenwrittenonRussia’searlymodernempire,focusinginparticular -a
b
ontheorganisational,administrativeandpoliticalquestionsofrulingsuchalarge,cultur- s
allydiversepolity.28Lesshasbeenwrittenabouttheusesofnaturalobjectsfromwithin trac
the empire, either by the court or by ordinary Russians.29 Studies focused on other t/31
Europeanempireshaveshownhowtheuseoflocalnaturalobjectswasofcontinuedim- /1/2
portanceintheearlymodernperiod,despitetheincreasedpossibilitiesforimportingnat- /2
6
7
ural objects from much further afield. Indeed, Alix Cooper’s work Inventing the 0
3
IndigenousemphasiseshowtheintroductionofNewWorldproductsintoCentralEurope 56
infactledtomanyintellectualsrefocusingtheirinterestsonthevalueoflocalproducts.30 by
g
MaterialsfromtheApothecaryChanceryallowustoexplorethepotentialmedicaluses u
e
s
ofnaturalobjectsfromtheRussianempire,bothatcourtandoutsideit. t o
n
0
6
A
p
26Renner,RussischeAutocratie,237–44. Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington–Indianapolis: ril 2
0
27Levin,‘HealersandWitches’. IndianaUniversityPress,2002). 19
28SeeforexampleValerieAnnKivelson,Autocracyin 29One exception is Rachel Koroloff, ‘Seeds of
the Provinces: The Muscovite Gentry and Political Exchange: Collecting For Russia’s Apothecary And
Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Stanford, CA: Botanical Gardens in the Seventeenth and
Stanford University Press, 1996); Matthew EighteenthCenturies’,(unpublishedPhD,University
Romaniello, The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the ofIllinoisatUrbana-Champaign,2014).
Creation of Russia, 1552–1671 (University of 30Alix Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous. Local
Wisconsin Press, 2012); Michael Khodarkovsky, Knowledge and Natural History in Early Modern
Russia’s SteppeFrontier: TheMakingof A Colonial Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007).
RussiaandtheMedicalDrugTradeintheSeventeenthCentury 9
Local markets certainly stocked local drugs. Apothecary Chancery records show the
department purchasing a number of items which could have been sourced locally. In
1651,dillandjuniperberrieswereamongstthesuppliesacquiredfromvariousMoscow
markets.31 In 1654, the department purchased mint oil and wormwood oil from
Mogilev.32 They were also able to source rosemary and basil (Arkhangelsk annual fair,
1672) and lavender and rosemary (Moscow markets, 1694).33 These objects were all
commontobothRussiaandEurope,butthereisreasontobelievethatatleastapropor-
D
tionwouldhavebeensourcedfromwithintheempire.Onemarkettrader,VasiliiKirilov, o
w
questioned about his trading activities in 1699, claimed that he stocked his stall from nlo
a
itemsbroughttohimbyruralpeoplewhocollectedplantsinthefieldsnearwherethey d
e
lived.34Themarkettradeinmedicaldrugs,bothwithinandoutsideMoscow,wasatleast d fro
partlybasedonlocally-grownsupplies. m
MarkettradersprovidedtheirwarestotheApothecaryChancery,andalsotounofficial http
healers.TheunofficialhealerwhotreatedBorisIvanovichMorozovin1662wascertainly s
usinglocalsupplies,specificallyaherbknownasthehare’shoof[zaiach’ekopyto].35As ://ac
a
discussed above, unofficial healers often came under suspicion of witchcraft; indeed, a d
e
substantial proportion of seventeenth-century witchcraft trials involve herbal healing.36 mic
Although not all the substances presented as evidence in those trials were identified in .o
u
p
therecords,thosethatwere,wereoftenlocalinorigin.Inacasefrom1628theaccused, .c
o
AndreiLoptunov,wasfoundcarryingarootidentifiedasGooseflesh,giventohimbyan m
unofficial healer.37 On one occasion, in 1657, the defendant, Andrei Durbenev, stated /sh
m
thathismaterialsgrewlocally: /a
rtic
One root is taken by people for stomach complaints [lit. womb] and for difficulty le
-a
breathing, and the second root is for horses, it is given to broken-winded horses, b
s
andthethirdrootisforteeth,itgrowsinfieldsandkitchengardens.38 tra
c
t/3
TheApothecaryChancerystaff,towhomsuchevidencewascommonlysenttogaintheir 1
/1
opinion,alsosometimesmadeastatementontheoriginoftheherbsinquestion,asin /2
/2
1664: 6
7
0
3
[there are] the herb karniana, another herb kanisa, and they [the Apothecary 5
6
Chancerystaff]saidthatthoseherbsarewildherbs[lit.fieldherbs].39 b
y
g
u
Theuseoftheterm‘wildherbs’or‘fieldherbs’partlydenotesanuncultivatedplant,but e
s
mayalsoindicatethattheherbsweretobefoundlocally,inthefields.Likethemarket t o
n
traders in medicines, unofficial healers also commonly relied upon local substances in 0
6
theirmedicines. A
p
ril 2
0
1
9
31Mamonov,Materialy,II,139–43. 36Levin,‘HealerandWitches’.
32Ibid.,155–7. 37Novombergskii,Materialy,III,part1,9–12.
33Receiptsdatingfrom1672,Mamonov,Materialy,II, 38Broken-wind refers to a form of allergic bronchitis
470–71.1694receiptsRGADAf.143,op.2,ed.khr. that causes wheezing, coughing and laboured
1554. breathing in horses. The quote is from Mamonov,
34RGADAf.143,op.3,ed.khr.462. Materialy,III,676–77.
35Levin,‘HealerandWitches’,125–7;Novombergskii, 39Novombergskii,Materialy,I,60–61.
Materialy,I,12–13.
10 ClareGriffin
OfallgroupsinRussia,thecourthadthegreatestpossibilityofexploitingforeignsour-
ces for medicines. However, records show that the court invested substantial time and
moneyingatheringatleastaproportionoftheirmedicaldrugsfromaroundtheempire.
SucheffortswerecoordinatedbytheApothecaryChancery,butnecessitatedtheinvolve-
mentofgovernmentalcouriers,governors,regionaladministratorsandpeasantpopula-
tions both in regions close to Moscow and much further afield. Moreover, this process
continuedfromthe1630swellintotheeighteenthcentury.
D
Perhaps the most commonly collected objects from around the Russian empire were o
w
juniperberries,which wererequired inlargequantities tobe made into thealcoholsin nlo
a
whichearlymodernmedicineswerecommonlysuspendedforconvenientconsumption. d
e
RachelKoroloffhasarguedthatcollectionsofjuniperberrieswereparticularlycentredon d fro
the vicinity of Iarolslavl’, an historically important town located 250 kilometers to the m
north-eastofMoscow.40Iaroslavl’slocationissignificant:thetowniswellwithinthebor- http
ders of the historical Rus’ lands, making collections there very much an affair of Russia s
proper,andnottheempire.Koroloffhasshownhowjuniperberrieswerecollectedbylo- ://ac
a
calpeasantsasanobligatoryservicetothetsar[povinnost’],andthenpassedontothe d
e
m
Apothecary Chancery. Juniper berry collection, then, was an activity of the central ic
Russianprovinces,andonethatwasorganisedasaformoftraditionalserviceobligation. .o
u
p
Fromatleastthemiddleoftheseventeenthcentury, theRussian statealso exploited .c
o
the botanical possibilities of its wider empire, most notably Siberia. The use of Siberian m
/s
natural riches was not new: for centuries, Siberian furs had been prized across Europe h
m
and theNear East.41Koroloff has argued thatSiberia, notably thearea aroundthekey /a
administrativecentreofTobolsk,wasexploitedforitssuppliesofStJohn’sWort.42When rtic
le
inneedofthisitem,theApothecaryChancerywouldwritetothegovernorofSiberiaat -a
b
Tobolsk,andinstructhimtosendsuitablyknowledgeablemenintothefieldsandforests stra
insearchofthisobject.AswithJuniperberries,theStJohn’sWortwouldthenbesent c
t/3
backtoMoscowforusebytheApothecaryChancery.Therewasnoobligatorycollection 1
/1
ofStJohn’sWortakintotheJuniperberrypovinnost’.Despitethedifferencesinorgani- /2
/2
sation,thecollectionofStJohn’sRootfromtheTobolskareawasmarkedlysimilartothe 6
7
collectionofJuniperberriesintheIaroslavl’region,includingthecentralroleoftheordi- 03
5
naryapparatusofthestatetoundertaketheprocess. 6
b
Inonly oneinstancedid the seventeenth-century Russianstateundertakeabotanical y g
u
expeditionproper:thesearchforaSiberiansourceforrhubarb.Rhubarbhadbeentraded e
s
using land routes across Eurasia—originating in the Chinese territories, and moved by t o
n
BukharanmerchantstoRussia,whenceitwasthensentontoWesternEurope—sinceat 0
6
least the middle of the sixteenth century.43 Due to the high demand for rhubarb in A
p
Western Europe, the Russian state had a stake in finding a domestic source for it. As ril 2
ErikaMonahanhasshown,therewasashort-livedattempttocollectrhubarbinSiberia, 0
1
9
rather than import it from the Chinese, likely to have been motivated by commercial
aims. However, as demonstrated by Monahan, these expeditions were exclusively
40RachelKoroloff,SeedsofExchange,41. 42Koroloff,SeedsofExchange,41.
41JanetMartin,TreasureoftheLandofDarkness:The 43Clifford M. Foust, Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug
Fur Trade and its Significance for Medieval Russia (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1992).
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2004).
RussiaandtheMedicalDrugTradeintheSeventeenthCentury 11
organised by the state, and indeed documents pertaining to the expeditions were la-
belledgosudarevadela[lit.theTsar’sbusiness]—astatesecret.44Inthecaseoftheshort-
lived rhubarb expeditions, commerce certainly played a role, but only as a part of the
state’smotivations,asitwasstillthestatethat controlled,organisedandprofitedfrom
suchschemes.
Consideration oflocaldrugsthusbreaksdownsome ofthe barriersthought tohave
existed between official and unofficial medical practice in seventeenth-century Russia.
D
Markettraders,unofficialhealersandthecourtmedicaldepartment,allhadaninterest o
w
inusinglocaldrugs.Thecourtdidsoonahugescale,constructing,orattemptingtocon- nlo
a
struct, entire supply systems to funnellocal and imperial medicines to Moscow. Private d
e
tradeseemstohavebeenmuchmoresmall-scale,withindividualmarkettradersdealing d fro
one-on-one with certain peasant collectors. In the case of unofficial healers, they also m
seemtohavebeeninvolvedinrathersmall-scaledealings.Itisalsointerestingthat,de- http
spitetheoftennegativeattitudeofRussianauthoritiestowardsunofficialmedicine,they s
themselvesusedprivatemarkettraderstosourcecertainitems.Althoughinmanyways ://ac
a
official and unofficial Russian medicine were very different, and sometimes in conflict, d
e
m
theybothsharedacommoninterestinlocaldrugs,albeitsourcedonradicallydifferent ic
scales. .o
u
p
.c
o
m
The European Connection /s
h
Russia’s closest contacts—in terms of medicine, but also trade and diplomacy—in the m
/a
seventeenthcenturywerewithasmallgroupofWesternEuropeannations,mostnotably rtic
England, the Netherlands and the German lands. Earlier work on the Apothecary le
-a
Chanceryhasestablishedthefundamentalinfluenceofthesegroupsofforeignersonthe b
s
personnel, library and medical practices of the Apothecary Chancery. Less is known tra
c
about the importance of the Western European connection for medical drugs. t/3
1
ApothecaryChanceryrecordsallowustoexamineboththeportsthroughwhichRussia /1
/2
sourceditsmedicaldrugs,andthegeographicoriginofthosedrugs,toassesstherelative /2
6
importanceofWesternEuropeinthatprocess.Conversely,thegreatdetailofRussianre- 7
0
3
cordsconcerning thistradewithmajorEuropeanmarketsalsoallowsustoexplorefur- 5
6
therthehistoryofmedicaldrugsinWesternEurope. b
y
AlthoughRussianmarkettraderssourcedaproportionoftheirgoodslocally,someof g
u
e
those drugs may have been imported from Western Europe. In 1654, the Apothecary s
ChancerypurchasedmintoilandwormwoodoilfromMogilev.45Theywerealsoableto t on
0
source rosemary and basil (Arkhangelsk annual fair, 1672), and lavender and rosemary 6
A
(Moscowmarkets,1694).46TheypurchasedsennafromMogilevin1654.47Suchgoods p
ril 2
0
44Erika Monahan, ‘Locating Rhubarb: Early MerchantsofSiberia.TradeinEarlyModernEurasia 19
Modernity’s Relevant Obscurity’, in Paula Findlen, (IthacaandLondon:CornellUniversityPress,2016),
ed.,EarlyModernThings.ObjectsandtheirHistories, 55,60–1,103,125,173–4,185,192,266–70,274.
1500–1800 (London and New York: Routledge, My thanks to Erika Monahan for her thoughts on
2013), 227–51; Monahan, ‘Regulating Vice and rhubarb.
Virtue: Controlling Commodities in Early Modern 45Mamonov,Materialy,II,155–7.
Siberia’, in Matthew Romaniello and Tricia Starks, 46For the Arkhangelsk annual fair, see Mamonov,
eds, Tobacco in Russian History and Culture. From Materialy, II, 470–71; For the Moscow markets,
theSeventeenthCenturytothePresent(Londonand seeRGADAf.143,op.2,ed.khr.1554.
NewYork:Routledge,2011),61–82;Monahan,The 47Mamonov,Materialy,II,155–7.