Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706): A Jesuit Pharmacist at the Frontiers of Colonial Empires Šebestián Kroupa Darwin College Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2019 i Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text It does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee. ii iii Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706): A Jesuit Pharmacist at the Frontiers of Colonial Empires Šebestián Kroupa Darwin College | Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge Doctor of Philosophy August 2019 Abstract This dissertation confronts persistent questions about how knowledge travelled across geographic and socio-cultural spaces and about how diverse local knowledge traditions came to shape global knowledge in the age of colonialism. I explore these issues through the lens of the career of the Jesuit pharmacist Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706) and the communications of medical and natural knowledge between the early modern Philippines and Europe. Sent as a missionary to the Spanish outpost in Manila, Kamel found himself engaged in encounters between European and local traditions, and in worldwide networks of knowledge exchange that spanned the Spanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese colonial empires. My main concern is Kamel’s participation in the global commerce of medical and natural knowledge. Seeking to decentre previous narratives of the mobility of early modern knowledge and recover agencies previously regarded as peripheral, I use Kamel’s activities to demonstrate how agents from diverse cultures and with different goals built functional relationships which facilitated worldwide movements of knowledge. This dissertation traces movements of knowledge from the point of local production, through entanglements between European and non- European traditions, and thence to worldwide movements and receptions in Europe and beyond. In this way, it shows how a Philippine medicinal plant used by indigenous communities became a global commodity, and how local knowledge thus attained global mobility. Kamel’s activities highlight that input from local traditions, and from agents across the social spectrum were essential to the production and mobilisation of knowledge, which was negotiated in complex cross-cultural situations. By pluralising the sites, agents and traditions involved, I point towards new geographies of early modern knowledge. iv v Table of Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................................................... i Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... xiii Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1 1. How does knowledge travel? .......................................................................................................... 4 2. Local encounters, global movements ............................................................................................. 6 3. Science and empire in Spanish colonial worlds ............................................................................ 10 4. Science and the Society of Jesus ................................................................................................... 13 5. Trading in natural and medical knowledge ................................................................................... 16 6. Overview of the chapters .............................................................................................................. 18 Chapter I: Consuming Medicine in Late Seventeenth-Century Manila ................................................ 21 I.1. Georg Joseph Kamel and his Philippine mission ......................................................................... 24 I.2. Jesuits in Manila: Missionaries, healers and miraculous cures .................................................. 31 I.3. The Spanish Royal Hospital: Ethnic hierarchies and religious missionaries ................................ 41 I.4. Humble workshops and royal hospitals: Galenic drugs imported and invented ........................ 48 I.5. Spanish drugs for Spanish bodies ............................................................................................... 55 I.6. Asia meets America: Entangled remedies and trans-Pacific transplantations ........................... 60 I.7. Kamel’s networks: Collecting and confessing, missionaries mobile and immobile .................... 63 I.8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter II: The Natural Historical Enterprise of James Petiver ............................................................ 69 II.1. James Petiver ............................................................................................................................. 75 II.2. Between money and gifts, learning and commerce .................................................................. 79 II.3. Printing specimens, printing capital ........................................................................................... 82 II.4. The gains and losses of turning commercial .............................................................................. 88 II.5. Surgeons and smugglers, or taking advantage of the East India Company’s networks ............ 89 II.6. Trading plants between Madras and London ............................................................................ 91 II.7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 97 Chapter III: Knowledge in Transit Between Manila and London .......................................................... 99 III.1. Kamel within Jesuit networks: Pecunia non olet ad maiorem Dei gloriam ............................ 101 III.2. Learned Fathers and erudite gentlemen, or how to set up a learned correspondence ......... 108 III.3. The lure of distant lands, or why geography matters ............................................................. 111 III.4. The politics and politeness of learned correspondence ......................................................... 116 vi III.5. Desire for books and botanical matters .................................................................................. 121 III.6. Kamel’s appendix to Ray ......................................................................................................... 127 III.7. Snakewood and snake bile: Circulating recipes across the frontiers of empires ................... 131 III.8. Correspondence at war and the termination of the link ........................................................ 135 III.9. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 137 Chapter IV: Appropriating Local Knowledge ....................................................................................... 139 IV.1. Publishing ad maiorem Dei gloriam ........................................................................................ 143 IV.2. Kamel’s classification system: Local inspirations and global ambitions ................................. 145 IV.3. What’s in a name? Bohemian blueberries and the Philippine Babel ..................................... 149 IV.4. The amomum of Dioscorides, or encountering the ancients in the Philippines .................... 156 IV.5. Collecting, transplanting, trialling: Gathering the evidence ................................................... 166 IV.6. Appropriating igasur: Jesuit beans and vomitory nuts ........................................................... 171 IV.7. The bean goes to Europe ........................................................................................................ 176 IV.8. Kamel’s legacy: Camellia and the importance of images ....................................................... 180 IV.9. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................