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Latin Americas

PictureDrawings of an American aloe plant in Nürnberg, Christoph Trew, 1727
My postdoctoral research inquires into two themes. The first theme concerns the mobility of knowledge, arising from contact with the Latin Americas, in seventeenth century Germany. Scientists Johann Elsholtz and Johann Daniel Major directly observed “new” plants, such as the American aloe plant, in gardens throughout Germany. While they initially accepted Indigenous epistemes, such as reports from Indigenous in Peru who used fluid from the cactus plant to heal bladder stones, the German scientists soon faced the challenges of changing ontologies of American plants and their medicinal properties. This was mostly due to different climates between Germany and the Americas. But how did these scientists reconcile what they had read with what they saw? How did their common educational background at the University of Padua shape their consideration of climatic changes in their knowledge making of “new” plants?

​The second theme of my project contrasts what is happening in Germany with institutional history in Mexico and Peru. While the College of Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco cultivated Indigenous medical knowledge, the Royal University of Mexico and the University of the City of the Kings in Peru did not incorporate this knowledge into their curriculum or theory building. But what counted as Indigenous knowledge in the first place, and what did not? What were the local circumstances and reasons that allowed one institution to incorporate this knowledge into its curriculum, and what were those that prevented such incorporations? I look at how the colonial context, religion, and politics shaped how American medical materials was viewed at educational institutes in Mexico and Peru.

German Scientists, their Observationes, and Ties to the Latin Americas
in the Seventeenth Century


Postdoctoral Project at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Associated Project with the Leopoldina Zentrum für Wissenschaftsgeschicte

In the seventeenth century, the mobility of knowledge arising from contact with the Latin Americas extended beyond Iberia to German scientists. In 1624, German surgeon Jacob Lachmund from the town of Hildesheim wrote down his experiences and observations of new diseases and remedies during his travels to Brazil and Guinea. According to his travel notes, Lachmund served as a physician in an official capacity for Dutch soldiers. Two of Lachmund’s accounts were published posthumously by his son, also a physician, in the Miscellanea curiosa of 1673/74. Other German scientists, such as Johann Elsholtz and Johann Daniel Major, did not physically travel to the Americas, but directly observed new plants, such as the American aloe, in pleasure gardens and botanical gardens throughout Germany. And scientist Christian Metz received American medicinal materials, such as bark from the Laurus americanus tree, in letter correspondence with his colleague Willem Piso, who spent several years in Brazil. My project investigates knowledge networks between the Latin Americas and German scientists in the seventeenth century, asking how German scientists made, understood, and received reports of observations of new diseases and medicines from their own travels and other travelers in the “New World.”



Deutsche Wissenschaftler, ihre Beobachtungen und institutionelle Verbindungen
zur 'Neuen Welt' im 17. Jahrhundert
​

Im siebzehnten Jahrhundert beschrieb der deutsche Chirurg Jacob Lachmund aus Hildesheim, der nach seinem Tod als bekannter Wundarzt bezeichnet wurde, seine Erfahrungen und Beobachtungen über neue Krankheiten und Heilmittel auf seinen Reisen nach Brasilien und Guinea. Laut seinen Reiseberichten diente Lachmund als Arzt in amtlicher Funktion für niederländische Soldaten. Zwei von Lachmunds Berichten wurden posthum von seinem Sohn, ebenfalls Arzt, in den Miscellanea Curiosa von 1673/1674 veröffentlicht.
Lachmund ist ein Beispiel für einen deutschen Chirurgen, der in der Lage war, wirklich nach Amerika zu reisen, und weist bereits 1624 auf deutsche Netzwerke rund um den Globus hin. Obwohl der Schwerpunkt normalerweise auf den Spaniern und Portugiesen liegt, die die aristotelischen Wissenschaften nach Mexiko, Peru und Brasilien brachten, dehnte sich die Rezeption der neuen materia medica auch auf deutsche Wissenschaftler aus. Man musste nicht wirklich nach Amerika reisen, um neue Pflanzen und Heilmittel zu beobachten. Viele frühe Mitglieder der Leopoldina konnten neue Pflanzen in Gärten direkt in Deutschland beobachten und durch Korrespondenzen mit Kollegen neue Informationen erhalten.

Das Projekt „Deutsche Wissenschaftler, ihre Beobachtungen und institutionelle Verbindungen zur Neuen Welt im 17. Jahrhundert“ konzentriert sich auf die im 17. Jahrhundert vorherrschenden Netzwerke zwischen den Institutionen Mexikos, Perus und Brasiliens und deutschen Wissenschaftlern. Es untersucht, wie deutsche Wissenschaftler von ihren eigenen Reisen und von anderen Reisenden in der Neuen Welt Beobachtungen neuer Krankheiten und Medikamente gemacht, verstanden und erhalten haben.

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