This project’s aim was to establish new knowledge about early modern pharmacy by reworking lost pharmaceutical skills in handling medicines. We have investigated where substances were sourced and how they were identified, stored, handled, mixed and used. We have also studied, through history of science, what medicinal substances meant to those who handled them. By combining theories and methods from experimental history of science and global history with modern pharmacy, we have sought to reconstruct early modern knowledge about pharmacy, both in its theoretical and practical aspects.

Initially the project focused on reproducing an 18th century elixir of seven ingredients, Hjärnes Testamente (Swedish Bitters). We investigated and reproduced historical methods used to produce composite medicines, such as weighing, pulverizing, sifting and filtration. Simultaneously we investigated the elixir’s historical roots in Renaissance medical distillation and how it was used up until the 1980s. In the project’s second phase we reproduced a more complex medicine, Theriac Andromachalis. This is an electuary (honey-paste) containing about 80 ingredients. These are sourced mostly from the plant realm, although the medicine also contains a small number of ingredients from the mineral and animal realms. Our focus in this part of the project was on issues of identification, how to purchase or otherwise obtain products, and quality control of ingredients. Thorough research in i.e. older pharmaceutical literature and botanical works was conducted in parallel with laboratory work. Simultaneously we investigated products, historical samples and ingredients through modern chemical analytical methods. An important aim of these latter investigations was to ascertain whether storage and aging changes composite medicines on a molecular level. Several samples have been stored for further investigations that will be conducted in the future.

During the final phase of the project we made use of expert panels to study how products and ingredients could be identified through sensory means, i.e., through odor, taste, tactile and visual properties. The laboratory work was conducted at the div. of Pharmacognosy at the dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Uppsala University. The sensory analyses were conducted at Kristianstad University. We have been permitted to borrow objects and historical samples from the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society, and we have been given free access to laboratory equipment and sample substances from several university departments and private companies. It should be noted that this essentially historical project has been very well received in pharmaceutical and medical science circles.

The three most important results of the study, and its most important contribution to international research can be said to be the following

1. We have clearly demonstrated that the sensory experience of taste and flavor of substances were assigned major importance in the early modern system of medical knowledge. Furthermore, we have presented a theory as to why this was the case.

2. We have contributed to a reevaluation of the role and status of apothecaries in early modern medicine.

3. The interdisciplinary nature of the study has contributed to methodological development in the field of history of science.

Previous research in this area has paid a substantial amount of attention to the question of whether early modern medicines were effective from a physiological perspective. This is a type of discussion that assumes a late modern view of medicines. Our research has shown that the sensory experience of medicines and substances can be used as a connecting link to understand the early modern system of knowledge -as a whole. This includes trade, manufacture and consumption of medicines, as well as how medical theories were articulated and used. Our research has made it very clear why pharmacy was so strongly connected to trade in spice, and the manufacture of distillates, spiced wines and candy.

Consequently, the project contributes to current international research that investigates apothecaries as producers of knowledge and keepers of an interwoven knowledge about trading goods. It encompassed skills concerning handling and usage, as well as more intellectual parts concerning how to classify and make scientific descriptions of specimen.

As a third point we would like to emphasize that the interdisciplinary character of the study has contributed to methodological development in history of science by bringing the field into contact with the methods of pharmaceutical and sensory research, such as pharmaceutical-chemical and sensory analysis.

New research questions have also been generated by the project

The study of how historically used products and ingredients can be identified and characterized by trained panels of experts using sensory analysis, i.e., by proceeding from odor, flavor, tactile and visual properties, is very promising. Future research in this area has the potential to connect historical theories of flavor and odor, and on the medicinal properties of substances, with modern sensory research. It can also engender modern products produced from historical templates. We intend to continue to work in this area together with researchers who are experts in this field.

Regarding the internationalization aspects of the project we would like to mention the following. In the original application it was stated that we would organize a workshop with the historian of science Lawrence Principe. He was invited as a guest researcher at Uppsala University during two months in the spring of 2016. The workshop took place March 14-16, 2016, at the Office for History of Science, Div. for Pharmacognosy at Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry Uppsala University, and at the Hagströmer Medico-Historical Library, Karolinska Institutet. The Office for History of Science contributed financially both to the workshop and to Principe’s stay in Uppsala. In addition to Principe, seven other participants from four countries participated in the workshop. The presentations that were made at the workshop were published in a thematic issue of Ambix 63:2 (2016) edited by Fors, Principe and H. Otto Sibum.

The international dimensions of the project were enhanced by its partial integration into a research collaboration (led by Fors and Sibum) with CESIMA, one of the foremost environments for history of science in South America. This meant that the trajectory of our research to some degree changed. Initially we had intended to make a detailed study of some of the East Asian ingredients in our medicines. Now, the focus instead came to be redirected to South America, and several visits to Brazil were conducted as part of the project.

It has been presented twice at CESIMA in Sao Paulo (2015-11-18, and 2017-08-01) and also at the 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology in Rio de Janeiro (2017 06 25). At the same congress Fors, Silvia Waisse (CESIMA) and Georges Métailié (Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris) organized a symposium of one-and-a-half-day on the theme of "De-centered science, for real? : Transits of mining chemistry, medicine and natural history in Europe and Latin America." A selection of the talks that were held at this symposium will be published as a thematic section in Lychnos 2019.

We have also participated with a poster at the "Joint Natural Product Conference 2016", (Copenhagen), 24-28 July 2016, and with a poster at the ”Eurosense 2018”, (Verona), 2-5 Sep., 2018.

The project was presented (2015-04-17) in Leiden at the conference "Materia Medica on the move: Collecting, trading, studying, and using medicinal plants in the early modern period". For the follow up congress ”Materia medica on the move 2nd edition: Amsterdam 2017” we were invited to hold a demonstrational workshop /plenary lecture with the title Fac lege artis: plenary introduction (2017-10-05). In conjunction with this a short documentary based on our work was made. It can be downloaded here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLReaTxwhEQ

In Sweden, the project has been presented at higher seminars at Stockholms Universitet (2017-01-25: Historiska insitutionen) and Uppsala Universitet (2018-10-25: inst. för idé- och lärdomshistoria) at Nordiska Medicinhistoriska kongressen in Uppsala/Sätra Brunn (2017-06-03) and at the workshop ”Transforming useful science, c. 1760-1840” at the Unit for Medical History and Heritage, KI (2017-11-14).

We have held presentations for the public at Hagströmerbibliotekets vänners årsmöte (2016-09-08) at Postmuseum (2017 08 24) for Sällskapet Linnés vänner (2017-12-07) and at Hagströmerbiblioteket, KI (2017-12-08). Our research has been presented on national radio in Vetenskapsradion Historia (2017-02-07; with several reruns) http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/845209?programid=407 and in Uppsala University’s student magazine Ergo http://ergo.nu/forskning/20170403-vill-smaka-p%C3%A5-sin-egen-medicin .

In addition, the project has served as a point of departure for two master theses supervised by Ahnfelt at the div. for Pharmacognosy, Uppsala. Finally, Ahnfelt and Fors have also founded a company, Antidotarium AB, the purpose of which is to reproduce historical pharmacy-related products and evaluate their economic potential.
Due to some overlap with a previous project, research on the project started a year after the grant was awarded. For this reason, most of the publications are, as yet, only available in manuscript form.

The titles are given below, followed by the present number of pages of each manuscript.

Ahnfelt, Fors and Karin Wendin, A Taste of Historical Pharmacy: Assessing the sensory characteristics (taste, flavor and odor) of seven plant-based pharmaceuticals commonly used during the early modern period. 6 pages. Submitted to Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Application for a grant for open access publishing will be submitted to RJ if/when the article is accepted.

Ahnfelt, Fors and Karin Wendin, Assessing taste, flavor and odor of the famous panacea Theriac Andromachalis. 9 pages.

Ahnfelt and Fors, The Philosophers’ Stone of the Pharmacy: Reproducing the famous panacea Theriac Andromachalis. 30 pages.

Ahnfelt and Fors, The Alchemists Children: Gender, Knowledge and an eighteenth-century Family Heritage. 23 pages.

Ahnfelt and Fors, Taste, smell and physiological effect of early modern medicines: a pharmaco-historical investigation into theriac and Swedish bitters. 15 pages.

Ahnfelt and Fors, Best after, not best before: on oxidation and aging of historical medicinals. At present we have working materials and samples. Publications is scheduled for 2024, at the earliest.