The series of authorizations issued in the seventeenth century by the municipal authorities of Lyon makes the city a useful vantage point from which to observe the trajectories of itinerant empirical practitioners. The article is thus situated at the intersection of four main lines of inquiry: the study of the rhythms of practitioners’ visits—comparable to those of theatrical life, whose forms of public display were similar; the analysis of urban governance exercised by political, medical, and religious authorities; the examination of urban spatiality, focusing on the social geography of practice; and the mapping of urban networks shaped by the itineraries of traveling practitioners. More specifically, the richest sources make it possible to identify the clientele, who was recruited within regional borders, the performative techniques used to persuade audiences of the effectiveness of remedies, and the nature of the procedures which were carried out: couching of cataracts, reduction of hernias, extraction of bladder stones, and excision of tumors.
Ravintsara (Cinnamomum camphora ct. 1,8-cineole) holds a central place in traditional Malagasy medicine, where it is widely considered an endemic medicinal plant. However, C. camphora was introduced to Madagascar in the nineteenth century as part of colonial botanical and industrial projects for camphor extraction. This article examines how and why an introduced species was integrated into Malagasy therapeutic practice and subsequently transformed into an essential oil export commodity over the past century and a half. Drawing on archival research and oral histories, the article traces Cinnamomum camphora from its introduction as a camphor-producing tree to its appropriation for therapeutic purposes under the name “ravintsara” and subsequently to its redefinition as a cineole-rich essential oil in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The analysis shows how chemical classification and standardization by Malagasy research institutions, building on earlier processes of local appropriation, stabilized ravintsara not as a source of camphor but as a therapeutic substance with both local use and export value. Placing the importance of ravintsara during the Covid-19 pandemic within this longer trajectory shows how the use and value of medicinal plants emerged through the historical interplay of Malagasy therapeutic practice and global trade.
In the historiography of medicine and pharmacy, the period going from the 1930s to the 1970s is associated with the idea of a radical change in health practices resulting from the discovery and the use of molecules which originated from pharmaceutical chemistry. This article re-examines the connections between clinical, biological and pharmaceutical knowledge during this period, in order to highlight the emergence and the ensuing marginalisation of a major alternative to the molecular approach of therapeutic efficiency that was favoured by the post-war biomedicine, that is the set of practices and the regime of knowledge centered on the invention, the production and the use of what was then called “biologicals.” This regime of action played a very important role in the quest for new drugs between the early 20th century and the end of the 1950s. The article analyses the characteristics and the decline of what we may call “industrial holism,” which was grounded in a very specific vision of relationships between therapeutic substances, research and the mass production of drugs.
From the 1880s to the 1930s, French physicians and hygienists within the Société végétarienne de France sought to define the vegetarian diet and assert its scientific legitimacy, facing critics about an insufficient and weakening diet. As part of the broader naturist movement, they promoted the “regeneration” of the body through diet and contact with nature. This article explores how they incorporated fruits and vegetables into their dietary recommendations, highlighting the ways in which these guidelines served both nutritional and promotional purposes. It also examines debates among vegetarian physicians over the therapeutic use of plant-based foods, as well as the tensions between the ideal of a raw, nature-oriented diet and the practical—and sanitary—necessities of food preparation, preservation, and culinary processing.
Published in London in 1597, The Herball by John Gerard, a barber-surgeon and the superintendent at the gardens at Burghley House, stood at the crossroads of scholarly tradition and empirical practice. This article reconsiders this work in light of its editorial, horticultural, and experimental dimensions, showing that Gerard was not merely a compiler of Rembert Dodoens but a practitioner mindful of the effects of habitats—soils, climates, and places—on the constitution and medicinal efficacy of plants. Studying the adaptation of exotic specimens such as cassava, smilax, and sweet potato to London soil, The Herball reveals how the English pharmacopoeia shifted from a local economy to a global scale, linking observation, circulation, and the adaptation of plants.
In late eighteenth-century France, the distinction between “natural” and “unnatural” childbirth was placed at the center of a major controversy that profoundly reshaped both the theory and the practice of obstetrics. Extending into the nineteenth century, this debate radically altered conceptions of the role of nature in childbirth and even the very definition of birth itself. This article examines the semantic evolution of the expression “contre-nature” in obstetrical discourse, from its initial meaning as a “difficult delivery” to more complex interpretations: a birth obstructed by a physical impediment that must be overcome, a failure of nature that has to be corrected, or the use of new surgical tools during the natural process of birth. The controversy over “unnaturalness” involved surgeons, physicians, and midwives, and inflamed disagreements not only on technical and surgical matters but also on ethical, professional, medico-philosophical, and gendered grounds. The debate provides an example of a broader transformation in the medical views of the period and offers a vantage point from which to understand the scientification of childbirth in the late eighteenth century. Its analysis reveals how the redefinition of the boundary between the natural and the artificial helped legitimize new forms of surgical intervention on pregnant women’s bodies, durably transforming relations between male practitioners, female practitioners, and parturient women.
This article analyzes how Latin American medicinal plants were presented, classified, and showcased at world’s fairs between 1851 and 1904. It shows that within these vast symbolic settings, they occupied shifting positions between “nature” and “industry,” circulating successively as natural objects, raw materials, chemical products, scientific specimens, and national emblems. Drawing on both a regional overview and a case study centered on Mexico, the article highlights the role of these plants in the construction of national images grounded in an organic articulation between nature and modernity. The case of pipitzahuac provides a concrete lens through which we can observe the ambitions, tensions, and limits of a project aimed at establishing a “national materia medica.” Although the plant never became a substantial industrial resource, it fulfilled an important symbolic function by representing the natural potential of the territory, as well as the state’s capacity to know it scientifically and to exploit it effectively.
While interdisciplinary practices have recently been the subject of studies and historical analyses, this article explores how such practices have been expressed in the field of the history of medicine and health. It begins with a review of the first 26 issues of this journal, followed by a reflection on a 2024 research workshop that brought together historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists. Histoire, médecine et santé, while rooted in its disciplinary foundations, remains open to neighboring fields and reflects both individual and collective interdisciplinary approaches. Building on methodological reflections previously developed in the journal, the article draws lessons from the interdisciplinary workshop titled “Health and Holistic Medicine”, offering insights into the conditions necessary for successful interdisciplinary collaboration—particularly the importance of language—and the benefits of dialogue between social and cultural history of medicine and other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences.
The article offers a reflection on the specificities of the early modern period as a vantage point from which to critically examine the very category of “history of medicine.” Far from attempting a systematic historiographical overview, our aim is rather to open up the category of “medicine” in order to analyze its historical construction and the plurality of its manifestations and interpretations, through an approach that combines empirical inquiry and theoretical reflection. The analysis is structured following two main axes. The first concerns the relationship between the history of medicine and the history of science, addressing the question of disciplinary histories and their respective and intertwined evolutions. The second calls for a shift in focus from a “history of medicine” to a “history of physicians,” within a knowledge economy framework that highlights the interactions between medicine and other forms of intellectual production in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Taken as a whole, our reflection advocates for a carefully contextualized historical approach, capable of offering relevant tools to critically interrogate the boundaries of medicine as an object of study in the early modern period—boundaries that are often inherited from other periods or disciplinary fields. Such a perspective makes it possible to bring its historical specificities to light and, in doing so, to contribute to redefining its role within the analysis of the social and intellectual processes of knowledge production.
