Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove Agyepoma (Author)
For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companies---including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever---have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africa's medicinal plants. Osseo-Asare recalls the efforts to transform six plants into pharmaceuticals: rosy periwinkle, Asiatic pennywort, grains of paradise, Strophanthus, Cryptolepis, and Hoodia. Through the stories of each plant, she shows that herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry have simultaneous and overlapping histories that cross geographic boundaries. At the same time, Osseo-Asare sheds new light on how various interests have tried to manage the rights to these healing plants and probes the challenges associated with assigning ownership to plants and their biochemical components. A fascinating examination of the history of medicine in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Bitter Roots will be indispensable for scholars of Africa; historians interested in medicine, biochemistry, and society; and policy makers concerned with drug access and patent rights.
...MoreDescription Covers the late 19th century.
Review Karen Flint (2015) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". International Journal of African Historical Studies (pp. 162-163).
Review Minakshi Menon (2017) Review of "The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 83-86).
Review Ama Boakyewa (2016) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". Journal of West African History (pp. 192-194).
Review Ruth J. Prince (2015) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". Social History of Medicine (pp. 943-944).
Review Noémi Tousignant (2015) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 902-903).
Review Voeks, Robert (2015) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 845-847).
Review Cozzoli, Daniele (2015) Review of "Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 381-382).
Article
Low, Christopher H.;
(2007)
Different Histories of Buchu: Euro-American Appropriation of San and Khoekhoe Knowledge of Buchu Plants
(/isis/citation/CBB001231355/)
Book
Fry, Carolyn;
(2013)
The Plant Hunters: The Adventures of the World's Greatest Botanical Explorers
(/isis/citation/CBB001213148/)
Thesis
Greene, William Alexander;
(2005)
Extracting Tradition: Nature, Culture, and Power in the Ethnobotany of Belize
(/isis/citation/CBB001560750/)
Article
Conde, Patrícia;
Figueira, Rui;
Saraiva, Susana;
Catarino, Luís;
Romeiras, Maria;
Duarte, Maria Cristina;
(2014)
A Missão Botânica de Moçambique (1942--1948): contribuições para o conhecimento da flora medicinal de Moçambique
(/isis/citation/CBB001420723/)
Book
Judith Sumner;
(2019)
Plants go to war: A botanical history of World War II
(/isis/citation/CBB089822194/)
Chapter
Ágota Ábrán;
(2022)
From Weeds to Commodities: The Translation of Plants into Medicines in Early Twentieth-Century Transylvania
(/isis/citation/CBB947834835/)
Article
Dritsas, Lawrence;
(2006)
Civilising Missions, Natural History, and British Industry: Livingstone in the Zambezi
(/isis/citation/CBB000771689/)
Article
Luedke, Tracy;
(2007)
Spirit and Matter: The Materiality of Mozambican Prophet Healing
(/isis/citation/CBB001031040/)
Book
Lorentz, Bernhard;
Erker, Paul;
(2003)
Chemie und Politik: die Geschichte der Chemischen Werke Hüls 1938 bis 1979: eine Studie zum Problem der corporate governance
(/isis/citation/CBB000651809/)
Book
Kleinman, Daniel Lee;
(2003)
Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce
(/isis/citation/CBB000500673/)
Article
Grietjie Verhoef;
(2022)
State and market: SOEs in Africa since the opening of markets, 1990s–2015
(/isis/citation/CBB223179739/)
Book
Bellamy, Matthew J.;
(2005)
Profiting the Crown: Canada's Polymer Corporation, 1942--1990
(/isis/citation/CBB000830716/)
Article
Lee Vinsel;
(2018)
“Safe Driving Depends on the Man at the Wheel”: Psychologists and the Subject of Auto Safety, 1920–55
(/isis/citation/CBB018375006/)
Book
Alusine Jalloh;
(2018)
Muslim Fula Business Elites and Politics in Sierra Leone
(/isis/citation/CBB049651323/)
Article
Alexander Keese;
Marie Huber;
(2022)
Introduction: State enterprises in Africa: A postcolonial history
(/isis/citation/CBB052435354/)
Chapter
Voigts, Linda Ehrsam;
(2012)
Herbs and Herbal Healing Satirized in Middle English Texts
(/isis/citation/CBB001252656/)
Article
Andrew Denning;
(January 2020)
Mobilizing Empire: The Citroën Central Africa Expedition and the Interwar Civilizing Mission
(/isis/citation/CBB004652231/)
Article
SIMON POOLEY;
(2016)
The Entangled Relations of Humans and Nile Crocodiles in Africa, c. 1840–1992
(/isis/citation/CBB633895199/)
Book
Sally Francis;
Maria Teresa Ramandi;
(2020)
Crocologia – A Detailed Study of Saffron, the King of Plants
(/isis/citation/CBB532067411/)
Book
Arsdall, Anne Van;
Graham, Timothy;
(2012)
Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of John M. Riddle
(/isis/citation/CBB001252081/)
Be the first to comment!