"Qualitates vegetabilium," "vires medicamentorum" und "oeconomicus usus plantarum" bei Carl von Linné (1707-1778): Erste Versuche einer zielgerichteten Forschung nach Arznei- und Nutzpflanzen auf wissenschaftlicher Grundlage (review)

Gerlinde Hövel. "Qualitates vegetabilium," "vires medicamentorum" und "oeconomicus usus plantarum" bei Carl von Linné (1707-1778): Erste Versuche einer zielgerichteten Forschung nach Arznei- und Nutzpflanzen auf wissenschaftlicher Grundlage. Braunschweiger Veröffentlichungen zur Geschichte der Pharmazie und der Naturwissenschaften, no. 42. Stuttgart: Deutscher Apotheker Verlag, 1999. ix + 452 pp. Ill. DM 48.00; öS 350.00; Sw. Fr. 48.00 (paperbound, 3-7692-2500-7).

"Plantae quaecunque genere conveniunt, etiam viribus propius accedunt" (Whatever plants agree generically also approach each other in their powers). Even this apparently self-evident principle of analogical reasoning guiding pharmacology in its search for new drugs has a historical origin: it was not formulated in a prominent and influential place before 1735, the year in which Carolus Linnaeus, then a twenty-eight-year-old student of medicine from Sweden, published his Systema naturae in Leyden.

With her book, Gerlinde Hövel has closed an important research lacuna, both in respect to the history of pharmacology, medicine, and botany and in respect to Linnaean scholarship. Linnaeus has mainly been perceived by historians of science as the "system-maker" who tried to uncover the hidden order behind the diversity of life (e.g., James Larson, Reason and Experience: The Representation of Natural Order in the Work of Linnaeus, 1971). His chemical, pharmocological, and medical research has not been the subject of any book-length study since some publications resulting from the Linnaean bicentennial in 1907 (e.g., Oskar Hjelt, Carl von Linné sasom läkare och medicinsk författare, 1907). And besides the recent publications of Anders Liedmann (Den synliga handen, 1986) and Lisbet Koerner¹ --both of whom Hövel unfortunately misses--there have been no studies of Linnaeus's multifarious engagement in projects of medical, economic, and political reform.

Hövel's aim here is to "determine and study Linnaeus's contribution to the research into the efficacy of plants" (p. 3). In her introduction, she sets out the political context of this research, with "attempts of governmental powers at countering population-diminishing conditions, mainly famines and epidemic diseaeses, according to the mercantilist principle that wealth equals population" (p. 2) as its main motive force. The ensuing three parts of the book successively scrutinize (1) the "experiences and interests" structuring Linnaeus's search for economically or medically useful plants; (2) the concepts of "qualitas," "vis," and "usus" he applied in this search; and (3) the heuristic principle of a "correspondence between plant affinity and efficacy" that guided the search. By exploring and carefully analyzing a broad selection of sources in all three parts--even drawing upon such obscure Linnaean works as the Clavis medicina duplex (1766)--Hövel is able to show two things: (1) how closely Linnaeus's research was tied to the economical motive of national autarky to be reached by import substitution or the use of surrogates for scarce resources (both motivating his principle of analogical reasoning); and (2) how flexible he was in the application of scientific methods, embracing various strains of contemporary medicine, chemistry, and biology without forcing them into one coherent "system." Thus he accepted qualitative (by odor and taste), chemical, and taxonomic approaches as coexistent and equally valid, though tentative, approaches to testing plants for their virtues as medicines or foodstuffs.

Besides these two important results, Hövel's book is valuable for the wealth of material it prepares for the reader. Mastering both Swedish and Latin, Hövel gives summaries for every possible Linnaean source on plants and their uses, including such seemingly trifling writings as his popular essays on tea, coffee, tobacco, beer, and brandy. Furthermore, she carefully retraces contemporary debates around Linnaeus's principle of analogy, and its few predecessors at...