Rhubarb : the wondrous drug / Clifford M. Foust.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foust, Clifford M., 1928- author.

Series:

Princeton Legacy Library ; 191

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rhubarb--Therapeutic use.

Rhubarb.

Rhubarb--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (394 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1992]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An Asian plant with mysterious cathartic powers, medicinal rhubarb spurred European trade expeditions and obsessive scientific inquiry from the Renaissance until the twentieth century. Rarely, however, had there been a plant that so thoroughly frustrated Europeans' efforts to acquire it and to master its special botanical and chemical properties. Here Clifford Foust presents the remarkable efforts of the explorers, traders, botanists, gardeners, physicians, and pharmacists who tried to adapt rhubarb for convenient use in Europe. His is an intriguing tale of how humans and their institutions have been affected by natural realities they do not entirely comprehend. Readers interested in the history of medicine, pharmaceutics, botany, or horticulture will be fascinated by this once-perplexing plant: highly valued by physicians for its cathartic properties, rhubarb resisted revealing its active chemical principles, had many widely varying species, and did not breed true by seed. This history includes sections on the geographic and economic importance of rhubarb--which explain how the plant became a major state monopoly for Russia and an important commodity for the East India companies--and a discussion of rhubarb's emergence as an international culinary craze during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Originally published in 1992.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. The Roots of Rhubarb

CHAPTER TWO. The Very True Rhubarb: The Seventeenth Century

CHAPTER THREE. The Russian Rhubarb Trade

CHAPTER FOUR. The East India Company and European Trade

CHAPTER FIVE. Collecting and Systematizing

CHAPTER SIX. Accommodating the Root: The Society of Arts and Other Promotions

CHAPTER SEVEN. Rhubarb as Medicine: The Eighteenth Century

CHAPTER EIGHT. The Search Ends?

CHAPTER NINE. The Testing of Rhubarb

CHAPTER TEN. Tarts and Wine

CONCLUSION

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages [321]-362) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 21. Dez 2019)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-691-63053-4

0-691-60069-4

1-4008-6265-5

OCLC:

889252600