Article
ID: CBB410787740

Could Siberian ‘Natural Curiosities’ Be Replaced? Bioprospecting in the Eighteenth-Century (2022)

unapi
Commodity exchanges Controversies and disputes Naturalists Cross-national interaction Bioprospecting Collectors and collecting Biological specimens 18th century St. Petersburg (Russia) London (England) Siberia (Russia) Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk Royal Society of London

This article focuses on three unique products circulating in the eighteenth-century marketplace – castor, mammoth tusks, and asbestos – and highlights the role of naturalists working for the Royal Society in London and at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in promoting the consumption of these goods. Naturalists’ scientific investigations of these products were essential to distinguish and identify the quality (and, correspondingly, the ideal price) of Siberian commodities as compared to similar, or even equivalent, commodities from other regions. When these products were later discovered in the British colonies, the scientific debates between London and St. Petersburg only gained a new urgency, inspiring arguments about authenticity and efficaciousness.

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Authors & Contributors
Camprubí, Lino
Constantino, María Eugenia
Cowie, Helen
Dickenson, Victoria J. V.
Goodman, Jordan
Grigson, Caroline
Journals
Archives of Natural History
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Journal of the History of Biology
William and Mary Quarterly
Publishers
Princeton University
Natural History Museum (London, England)
Nauka
Palgrave Macmillan
Sydney University Press
University of California Press
Concepts
Collectors and collecting
Biological specimens
Natural history
Animals
Zoology
Naturalists
People
Banks, Joseph
Cook, James
Du Chaillu, Paul
Dybowski, Benedykt
Petiver, James
Réaumur, René Antoine Ferchault de
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
20th century, early
17th century
20th century
20th century, late
Places
London (England)
Great Britain
Siberia (Russia)
West Africa
Ireland
China
Institutions
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Society of London
Zoological Society of London
Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk
Natural History Museum (London, England)
London Zoo
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