ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Transformations in Practices of Colonial Bioprospecting. Chaulmoogra-based Drugs in the Early 20th Century

• In Event: Roots and Remedies: Global Histories of the Pharmaceuticalization of Herbal Knowledge II

English Abstract

In the early decades of the 20th century, chaulmoogra oil-based medicines were a standard treatment for leprosy. Western medicine had adopted knowledge of their effects on skin diseases from Indian healers in the 1850s. Over the next few decades, particularly during the early 20th century, European doctors and pharmaceutical companies modified the oil and its application methods. By the 1920s, esters of chaulmoogra oil were the main treatment for leprosy. In my talk, I will argue that the chaulmoogra drugs were an expression of a transformation in colonial drug bioprospecting. While the colonial bioprospecting of the 18th century profited from the appropriation of medicinal plants in colonised lands, their cultivation, and the sale of dried plant parts, late 19th and early 20th century drug bioprospecting sought to chemically modify plant substances and turn them into marketable products.

Drawing on the publications of various manufacturers and archival material from the Bayer company, I will discuss how different actors attempted to modify, utilise and commercialise the drug. European pharmaceutical companies appropriated knowledge from Indian healers. At the same time they profited from exporting drugs to countries such as India. However, European pharmaceutical companies’ chaulmoogra drugs did not become blockbusters. There were also smaller producers, particularly colonial doctors working closely with leprosaria. The cultivation of chaulmoogra plants is another thing I will consider. As the demand for chaulmoogra oil increased in the 1920s, Western agents made several attempts to cultivate plants containing chaulmoogra oil.

Author

• Dominique Merdes, TU Braunschweig, Germany