The goal of this project is to provide wide and direct access to two rare dispensatories and formularies that illuminate the therapeutic practices and medical orientation of two physicians active in Pennsylvania during the period 1740-1770. A major component of the work is placement of these manuscripts in the Historical Medical Digital Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which is accessible to researchers and the interested lay public on the permanent website of the College. The overall objectives are to (I) preserve as virtual images and as an English-language machine readable data file the Medicina Pensylvania of George de Benneville, a French Huguenot physician, and the Remediorem Specimina aliquot expraxi A. Wagner, a Schwenkfelder practitioner from Silesia, (2) to evaluate and analyse their therapeutic armamentarium and its place in the history of European and colonial American therapy and (3) publish the research findings in the conventional print media. Both manuscripts are written in the 18th century vernacular (English and German) with some Latin medical nomenclature. They document reliance on a wide range of cherniatric and botanical substances and provide insight into the understanding of the major diseases and conditions, including female complaints, encountered in their ongoing practice. Their authors were learned practitioners and part of an active transatlantic information network. Their strong but eclectic orientation to chemiatric remedies is characteristic of the movements of religious and medical dissidence and reform demonstrated in the secondary literature for the transition from the 17th to the 18th century. The publication and comparative evaluation of their therapeutic armamentarium and instructions for diagnosis and treatment will throw light on poorly understood aspects of American colonial medicine, in particular the influence of health related traditions brought over from the radical medical milieus of Central Europe. Additionally, the project will provide a rich historical data base for current researchers investigating the genesis of traditional materia medica.
