Pharmacy History

Speaker: JJ R. Strange, PhD Candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Title: Crisis in the Garden: How War and Environmental Loss Transformed Chinese Pharmaceutical Research (1935-1955)

Format: Presentation followed by Q&A

Abstract: During the early and mid-twentieth century, global pharmaceutical research shifted away from botanical investigation to the synthetic creation of biochemical medicines. This presentation aims to reframe the shift in Chinese pharmaceutical research from botanicals to synthetic medicines as a product of changing landscapes within a research community, rather than a inevitable change in pharacueticals. In the decade leading up to Japan's invasion of China in 1937, Chinese pharmacists enjoyed a collaborative network of researchers and access to research materials, particularly those related to traditional Chinese medicine, with a strong emphasis on plant-based components. However, in 1937, despite warnings from botanists about the importance of cultivating medicinal plants, pharmacists lost access to their research subjects, facilities, and networks. After World War II (1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), research projects on botanicals were no longer major undertakings but rather secondary endeavors. This presentation will argue war, the nature of plants, and changing expectations of scientific production shifted the priorities of pharmaceutical research in China towards synthetic biochemical drug research, despite the enthusiasm and interest in Chinese botanicals as a potential source of biochemical medicine.

Speaker: Ryan A. Kashanipour, University of Arizona

Title: Epidemics and Epistemologies: Experiencing Illness in Colonial Yucatán

Abstract: From decade long outbreaks of smallpox and measles to recurrent eruptions of typhus and influenza, epidemic outbreaks of disease were a part of the everyday experiences of the inhabitants of colonial Yucatán.  Across the colonial period, from the sixteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, the region served as the mainland entry point for many Old World diseases.  So endemic were these diseases that a chronicler of the seventeenth century remarked that “it was rare for someone to even pass through the land and without falling sick with one epidemic disease or another.” Local populations lived with and negotiated diseases at an everyday level, so much so that it shaped the nature of knowledge and colonial relations. This talk examine colonial remedies for diseases and aim to open up conversations about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction. This talk examines colonial remedies for diseases and aims to open up conversations about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction.

Speaker: Audrey Ke Zhao, UC Santa Cruz & CHSTM Research Fellow

Format: Presentation with Q&A

Title: The Global Journey of Ginseng: A Study of its Impact on Early Modern Trade and Cultural Exchange

Abstract: Zhao's research argues that ginseng's transformation into a vital commodity of the Qing Dynasty was driven by its integration into the empire’s administrative and economic systems, with Pierre Jartoux’s identification fundamentally shifting ginseng trade from inland to maritime routes. This transformation not only expanded ginseng’s global circulation and accessibility but also reshaped patterns of early modern commerce, intertwined cultural and economic exchanges, and influenced understandings of ginseng's therapeutic uses across diverse contexts. 

Spring Semester Welcome Back Event: A critical reading of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls

Host: Kelly O'Donnell,  Towson University

Speaker: Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University. 

Talk: Beyond medical pluralism: Interactions between physician-pharmacists and other craftspeople in the Graeco-Roman world

Abstract: While there is a growing body of scholarship on the ancient ‘medical marketplace’, that is, the plurality of healers available to patients in the ancient world, the interactions between healers and other types of craftspeople are far less studied. Yet, physicians and pharmacists, which within the context of this paper are considered as a single category, interacted with and relied upon numerous craftspeople in the exercise of their trade: potters moulded various pots; smiths created instruments and pans; woodworkers crafted storage systems; stone engravers inscribed medicinal stamps; perfume makers provided key ingredients for the preparation of medicinal products. 
This paper examines several examples of these interactions between healers and other craftspeople: some are explicitly discussed by ancient medical authors, such as Galen; others are more implicit and must be teased out from our sources. The paper concludes that healers generally, and physicians in particular, were part of an ecosystem of craftspeople, in which hierarchies may not always have been those that we find presented in the works of medical authors.

Speaker: Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Kennesaw State University

Format: Chapter Workshop 

A word from our speaker: "Thank you for reviewing this draft chapter of my book, Women’s Bodies, Doctors’ Rights: The Medical Politics of Birth Control in the United States (under contract with Rutgers University Press). The book consists of seven chapters which trace the arc of birth control's legalization in the United States through the lens of how women reformers ("Feminists," "Suffragists" and "Mothers") shaped the disparate responses of male experts and officials ("Doctors," "Legislators," "Eugenicists," and "Prescribers") to contraception and control of women's health. "Prescribers" examines the relationship between two court cases (US v. Dennett in 1930 and U.S. v. One Package in 1936) and how their rulings for medical privacy and physician prerogative became the "medical profession's bill of rights in the field of contraceptive medicine." Doctors like Clarence Gamble and Robert L. Dickinson became part of a new generation of "Prescribers" of contraception, setting the stage for the development of the ultimate medical achievement in birth control by the middle of the twentieth century: the emergence of the Pill."

The chapter is attached below. You must be signed in to access it. 

Pre-Modern Pharmacy between Theory and Practice 

Format and Theme: Roundtable on the History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals (HoPP), forthcoming special issue.

Host: Lucas Richert (University of Wisconsin - Madison)

Speakers: Claire Burridge (University of Oslo), Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (University of Athens), Amanda Repress (Ohio State University)