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.
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2018
This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the ri... more This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the rich scholarship examining ideas about nature in the early modern Russian context. Starting with the basic question of how early modern Russians conceived of the natural world, the authors explore the numerous ways in which this question has been asked and answered by Russian historians and historians of science from the mid-twentieth century on. Acknowledging that these questions have recently been treated differently, the authors argue for a ‘natural turn’ in the scholarship. This introduction brings together Anglophone and Russophone literature to sketch the state the field before offering a relatively brief but nuanced history of the concept of the ‘Three Kingdoms of Nature’ (Tria Regna Naturae) which frames the project as a whole. The authors show how the early eighteenth-century articulation of the Tria Regna Naturae sat at the confluence of ancient Greek, early Christian, and more m...
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2018
This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the ri... more This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the rich scholarship examining ideas about nature in the early modern Russian context. Starting with the basic question of how early modern Russians conceived of the natural world, the authors explore the numerous ways in which this question has been asked and answered by Russian historians and historians of science from the mid-twentieth century on. Acknowledging that these questions have recently been treated differently, the authors argue for a ‘natural turn’ in the scholarship. This introduction brings together Anglophone and Russophone literature to sketch the state the field before offering a relatively brief but nuanced history of the concept of the ‘Three Kingdoms of Nature’ (Tria Regna Naturae) which frames the project as a whole. The authors show how the early eighteenth-century articulation of the Tria Regna Naturae sat at the confluence of ancient Greek, early Christian, and more m...
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
This article takes a close look at the history of an American tree now known as sassafras but kno... more This article takes a close look at the history of an American tree now known as sassafras but known to the Timucua of early modern Florida as pauame. Sassafras root was a major anti-febrile medicament in the early modern world. The history of that medicament has thus far primarily been written in terms of the Spanish empire, which commodified it in post-contact Eurasia. Yet Native Americans, in particular the Timucua, as well as the French, the British, and the Russians, all played major roles in the history of sassafras. That history involves several objects derived from the tree sometimes called sassafras, knowledge about those objects, and Eurasian ideas about the Americas. This article focuses on the issues of entangled empires, and commodity and knowledge exchanges, to show that early modern commodities were not unitary objects, but rather shifting entanglements of objects, words, and ideas.
This article deals with the trade in medicines into Russia in the seventeenth century.
Both the e... more This 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 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
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2018
This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the ri... more This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the rich scholarship examining ideas about nature in the early modern Russian context. Starting with the basic question of how early modern Russians conceived of the natural world, the authors explore the numerous ways in which this question has been asked and answered by Russian historians and historians of science from the mid-twentieth century on. Acknowledging that these questions have recently been treated differently, the authors argue for a ‘natural turn’ in the scholarship. This introduction brings together Anglophone and Russophone literature to sketch the state the field before offering a relatively brief but nuanced history of the concept of the ‘Three Kingdoms of Nature’ (Tria Regna Naturae) which frames the project as a whole. The authors show how the early eighteenth-century articulation of the Tria Regna Naturae sat at the confluence of ancient Greek, early Christian, and more m...
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2018
This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the ri... more This introduction to the Vivliofika special issue, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, illuminates the rich scholarship examining ideas about nature in the early modern Russian context. Starting with the basic question of how early modern Russians conceived of the natural world, the authors explore the numerous ways in which this question has been asked and answered by Russian historians and historians of science from the mid-twentieth century on. Acknowledging that these questions have recently been treated differently, the authors argue for a ‘natural turn’ in the scholarship. This introduction brings together Anglophone and Russophone literature to sketch the state the field before offering a relatively brief but nuanced history of the concept of the ‘Three Kingdoms of Nature’ (Tria Regna Naturae) which frames the project as a whole. The authors show how the early eighteenth-century articulation of the Tria Regna Naturae sat at the confluence of ancient Greek, early Christian, and more m...
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
This article takes a close look at the history of an American tree now known as sassafras but kno... more This article takes a close look at the history of an American tree now known as sassafras but known to the Timucua of early modern Florida as pauame. Sassafras root was a major anti-febrile medicament in the early modern world. The history of that medicament has thus far primarily been written in terms of the Spanish empire, which commodified it in post-contact Eurasia. Yet Native Americans, in particular the Timucua, as well as the French, the British, and the Russians, all played major roles in the history of sassafras. That history involves several objects derived from the tree sometimes called sassafras, knowledge about those objects, and Eurasian ideas about the Americas. This article focuses on the issues of entangled empires, and commodity and knowledge exchanges, to show that early modern commodities were not unitary objects, but rather shifting entanglements of objects, words, and ideas.
This article deals with the trade in medicines into Russia in the seventeenth century.
Both the e... more This 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 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
This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an exam... more This article addresses the question of the limits of literate medicine in Europe, through an examination of the Russian literate medical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Russian courtly medicine had been 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.
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Papers by Clare Griffin
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.