Abstract
A Comparative Analysis of Nineteenth Century Pharmacopoeias in the Southern United States: A Case Study Based on the Gideon Lincecum Herbarium. The Gideon Lincecum Herbarium represents the pharmacopoeia of Dr. Gideon Lincecum, a botanical physician practicing in Mississippi and Texas during the first half of the nineteenth century. The herbarium contains 313 specimens representing 309 species, 242 genera, and 96 families, and includes ethnobotanical annotations for 286 medicinal taxa. The collection data provided by Lincecum indicate that the specimens were collected between 1835 and 1852. With the exception of 22 specimens considered by Campbell (1951), this is the first study to place this pharmacopoeia in a historical context. Taxonomic determinations of the herbarium specimens were confirmed or corrected. Comparative analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship of Lincecum’s pharmacopoeia to those of six other medical traditions practiced in the southern United States during the nineteenth century. Cluster analyses based on Jaccard co-efficient placed the historical pharmacopoeias of medical traditions in the early nineteenth century into distinct Euro–American and American Indian groups. Despite the recognition of distinct allopathic and botanical medical traditions, an extensive overlap in the composition of their pharmacopoeias is observed. This may reflect the reliance of these traditions on allopathic principles and drugs of plant origin during the first half of the nineteenth century. In contrast, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek pharmacopoeias show limited overlap with each other in composition despite a long history of interaction between these groups. Lincecum’s pharmacopoeia shares a larger Jaccard co–efficient value with the Choctaw pharmacopoeia than would be expected based on their placement in distinct Euro–American and American Indian groups in the dendrogram. The large proportion of Lincecum’s citations that reference Choctaw informants provides direct evidence for the incorporation of Choctaw medical knowledge and taxa into Lincecum’s pharmacopoeia. These data suggest that the composition of historical pharmacopoeias is influenced by both contemporary medical practices and the regional and cultural contexts in which the pharmacopoeias are utilized.
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Acknowledgements
Requests for images of the voucher specimens in the Gideon Lincecum Herbarium can be directed to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (DBCAH), University of Texas at Austin, SRH 2.101, Austin, Texas 78712 (http://www.cah.utexas.edu). The author would like to thank the DBCAH for the loan of the GLH to the Plant Resources Center (TEX/LL). The late Sarah Clark Moriaty, past Head of Archives and Manuscripts at the DBCAH, brought the GLH to the attention of Dr. T. Wendt and Dr. B. B. Simpson. The guidance of Dr. Simpson and Dr. Wendt, who identified the GLH as a potential research project and supervised the research as part of the author’s Master’s thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, is gratefully acknowledged. Dr. Wendt, Dr. P. Fryxell and Dr. S. Jury provided assistance in specimen identification. M. Lurie provided assistance with statistical analyses. Dr. B. Harms assisted in preparation of the digital images. This manuscript benefited from revisions and comments provided by Dr. Simpson, Dr. Wendt, Dr. D. Moerman, K. Brown, and three anonymous reviewers. Financial support was provided by the Office of Graduate Studies and Plant Biology Graduate Program at the University of Texas at Austin and the Graduate Student Organization at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
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Birch, J.L. A Comparative Analysis of Nineteenth Century Pharmacopoeias in the Southern United States: A Case Study Based on the Gideon Lincecum Herbarium1 . Econ Bot 63, 427–440 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-009-9101-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-009-9101-8