NEW RAW MATERIALS FROM THE NEW WORLD: TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE TO POLISH PHARMACIES
NEW RAW MATERIALS FROM THE NEW WORLD: TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE TO POLISH PHARMACIES

Summary/Abstract: Cataloguing of the natural world was started by the 16th–century scholar Ulisses Aldrovandi, who was inspired by overseas expeditions. Collectors of specimens, among whom were many doctors of medicine and pharmacists, noticed the possibilities for using exotic plants and animals in medicine. The first pharmacopoeias, however, contained very few of the previously unknown raw materials and they did not have a great impact on the contemporary therapeutic possibilities. In the Polish territories, the raw materials from the New World had already been recorded in Jan Woyna’s Krakow Pharmacopoeia of 1683, in which five American species were identified. By contrast, in the 18th–century Jesuit pharmacies, 30 such materials were already used, although they were not pharmacopoeial.In the 18th century, in the Polish lands, an important role was played by duchess Anna Jabłonowska (1728–1800), who gathered one of the richest natural history collections in Europe in Siemiatycze in Podlasie. Thanks to her support, the Polish nature literature was enriched with numerous works that were of importance for the development of the natural sciences.

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