Article ID: CBB964716698

The “Controversial Cundurango Cure”: Medical professionalization and the global circulation of drugs (2020)

unapi

This article examines the medical and political discussions regarding a controversial medicinal bark from Ecuador – cundurango – that was actively sponsored by the Ecuadorian government as a new botanical cure for cancer in the late nineteenth century United States and elsewhere. The article focuses on the commercial and diplomatic interests behind the public discussion and advertising techniques of this drug. It argues that diverse elements – including the struggle for positioning scientific societies and the disapproval of the capacities of Ecuadorian doctors, US abolitionist history, regional and local political struggles – played a role in the quackery accusations against cundurango and its promoters. The development and international trade of this remedy offer interesting insights into the global history of drugs, particularly how medical knowledge was challenged during a period when scientific medicine was struggling for hegemony. It explores how newspapers expanded “the public interest” in a possible cancer cure.

...More
Included in

Article Irina Podgorny; Daniel Gethmann (2020) 'Please, come in.' Being a charlatan, or the question of trustworthy knowledge. Science in Context (pp. 355-361). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB964716698/

Similar Citations

Article Paulo F. C. Fonseca; Barbara E. Ribeiro; Leonardo F. Nascimento; (2022)
Demarcating Patriotic Science on Digital Platforms: Covid-19, Chloroquine and the Institutionalisation of Ignorance in Brazil (/isis/citation/CBB790462914/)

Article Lacy, Cherilyn; (2008)
Education, Mutualism, and Medical Consumers in Third Republic France, 1882--1914 (/isis/citation/CBB000930665/)

Book Robin Wolfe Scheffler; (2019)
A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB660913926/)

Book Bell, Susan E.; (2009)
DES Daughters: Embodied Knowledge and the Transformation of Women's Health Politics (/isis/citation/CBB001021024/)

Book Kaartinen, Marjo; (2013)
Breast Cancer in the Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001202252/)

Book Halliwell, Martin; (2013)
Therapeutic Revolutions: Medicine, Psychiatry, and American Culture, 1945--1970 (/isis/citation/CBB001201281/)

Book Rob Boddice; (2022)
Humane Professions: The Defense of Experimental Medicine, 1876–1914 (/isis/citation/CBB789019091/)

Book Sara E. Black; (2022)
Drugging France: Mind-Altering Medicine in the Long Nineteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB100452937/)

Book Giovanni Cipriani; (2015)
La via della salute. Studi e ricerche di storia della farmacia (/isis/citation/CBB733953315/)

Book Alison Moulds; (2021)
Medical Identities and Print Culture, 1830s–1910s (/isis/citation/CBB127072124/)

Book Greenlees, Janet; Bryder, Linda; ()
Western Maternity and Medicine, 1880--1990 (/isis/citation/CBB001550894/)

Article Hunting, Penelope; (2012)
Charles Dickens (1812--70): “The longer I live the more I doubt the doctors” (/isis/citation/CBB001200788/)

Chapter Moscoso, Javier; (2014)
Exquisite and Lingering Pains: Facing Cancer in Early Modern Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001202324/)

Article Heggie, Vanessa; (2015)
Women Doctors and Lady Nurses: Class, Education, and the Professional Victorian Woman (/isis/citation/CBB001552435/)

Article E. Claire Cage; (2019)
Child Sexual Abuse and Medical Expertise in Nineteenth-Century France (/isis/citation/CBB516319186/)

Thesis Brown, David S.; (2010)
Pathways to Power: Physicians in Charleston, South Carolina, 1790--1860 (/isis/citation/CBB001561127/)

Authors & Contributors
Fonseca, Paulo F. C.
Nascimento, Leonardo F.
Black, Sara E.
Moulds, Alison
Ribeiro, Barbara E.
Claire Cage
Concepts
Authority of medicine
Public understanding of medicine
Medicine and politics
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Medicine
Cancer; tumors
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
18th century
Early modern
Places
France
United States
Great Britain
South Carolina (U.S.)
England
Wales
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment