Pharmacological Experimentations as Biopolitical Processes

In this imperial pharmacological culture, Brazilian cinchona trees captured the interest of German scientists seeking new antipyretic drugs. These scientists sought to deepen their understanding of the causes and treatment of febrile diseases, which were believed to be alleviated by cinchona plants. Within European nosological systems, organs and symptoms were conceptualized as diseases. Fever was not merely a symptom of a disease but rather the disease itself – e.g., intermittierendes Fieber, Wechselfieber, Brustfieber.Footnote ¹² Moreover, German expeditions in Brazil during the early 19th century were comparable to other European ventures in their utilization of cinchona as an antifebrile. Cinchona-based preparations were purportedly used to protect German scientists from succumbing to febrile diseases. This discourse assigned significant pharmacological value to cinchona trees, recognizing them as essential medicinal agents. German pharmacological frameworks established a hierarchy of medicinal values, with antipyretic medicine occupying a prominent position.Footnote ¹³ For instance, Martius, a participant in the 1817 Austrian scientific expedition to Brazil, chose cinchona-based decoctions as a personal remedy to “endure two severe attacks of quartan fever during this journey, which I attempted to mitigate with potent emetics and cinchona.”Footnote ¹⁴ This was also evident during the travels of Langsdorff, the German-born Russian consul who led a Russian scientific expedition in Brazil in the 1820s. He reported consuming cinchona-based decoctions while traveling in southern Minas Gerais: “I significantly improved after the rhubarb laxative, ammonia salt, and cinchona I took yesterday.”Footnote ¹⁵ Langsdorff frequently combined chemical substances with cinchona bark to create pharmacological preparations that enhanced the plant's therapeutic efficacy.

As part of a broader German pharmacological culture, the scientific expeditions of Langsdorff and Martius spotlighted the growing prominence of cinchona decoctions as a pharmacological technology. The use of European cinchona preparations in Brazil underscored the plant's utilitarian role as an engineered tool, reinforcing imperial influence through scientific expeditions. These imperial practices were directed towards the discovery of new botanical specimens for the development of therapeutic drugs. Martius “believed that through comprehensive research on Brazilian medicinal plants, as well as other plant materials useful for artisanal work and industries, and by meticulously documenting their applications in their native regions, I could achieve the objectives of his mission [scientific advancement and the advancement of civilization].”Footnote ¹⁶ Martius was not alone in viewing Brazil's medicinal herbs, particularly cinchona, as research objects around which the imperial interests of Austria, Russia, and Prussia converged.

Additionally, German pharmacology lacked a stable theoretical framework to determine the identity of cinchona specimens. Various types of cinchona bark remained the subject of intense academic debate concerning their utility and authenticity as antifebrile agents within the cinchona family. From a morphological perspective, different cinchona specimens resembled one another, leading to confusion about their provenance.Footnote ¹⁷ For example, Martius observed that Brazil's quina do Piauhy (solanum pseudoquina) and quina do campo (strychnos pseudoquina) exhibited morphological similarities to Peruvian and Ecuadorian cinchona specimens. He observed that “the color here is similar to that of dry cinnamon, and when the bark is fresh, it leans slightly more towards yellow.”Footnote ¹⁸ However, he also remarked that quina do Piauhy “differs chemically from Peruvian cinchona, particularly due to the absence of the characteristic quinine alkaloid.”Footnote ¹⁹ Despite their chemical differentiation from Peruvian and Ecuadorian cinchona specimens, quina do Piauhy and quina do campo continued to be classified and utilized as antifebrile cinchona plants within German pharmacology, given their morphological resemblance to Peruvian cinchona bark.

In Brazil, German pharmaceutical culture redefined the natural world and developed pharmacological technologies from plant life. German pharmacology was driven by a defined social purpose of progress. Adhering to this ideology of modernization, Martius asserted in 1829 that his botanical observations “hold promise for practical sciences, particularly Medicine, Technology, and Trade […] dedicated to benefiting both humanity and Brazilian patriots […] highlighting Brazil's wealth of useful plants deserving of commercialization and recognition by European physicians and technicians!”Footnote ²⁰ Similarly, Martius’ scientific perspective was heavily influenced by vitalist notions of nature and empirical approaches to understanding biological processes.Footnote ²¹ This vitalist perspective characterized both human and non-human entities as components of a holistic system of living forces, defined as material substances.Footnote ²²

German scientific expeditions became entangled with chemical experiments, implicitly connected to visionary goals of social, material, and biological progress. These experiments relied on a scientific language that analyzed cinchona specimens in terms of their biotic components. As plants with medicinal properties, the cinchona specimens, solanum pseudoquina and strychnos pseudoquina, for example, “can be valuable for the fields of Medicine, Industry, and Trade.”Footnote ²³ On February 16, 1818, Martius showed interest in a cinchona bark, strychnos pseudoquina, with a “very bitter, thick bark.” The bitterness of this plant was a key physical characteristic, commonly associated with the cinchona family: “Fine cinchona bark is found near Mato Virgem […] with considerable bitterness.”Footnote ²⁴ The description of strychnos pseudoquina's composition as a bitter bark involved an objectification of its organs and vital forces.

This understanding of plant life facilitated the transformation of botanical organic substances into valuable pharmacological tools for manipulating the vital forces of the human body. For example, by examining the use of these plants among local populations, Martius argued that “strengthening medicines, such as cinchona bark, are also effective in treating the hardening of the spleen, liver, and mesenteric glands, conditions that are prevalent in the Sertão [a region in northeastern Brazil].”Footnote ²⁵ After establishing that “the bark of this tree possesses a very pleasant bitterness,” Martius further proposed that “a combination of the bark extract, which we instructed the natives to prepare, with mercurius dulcis, fully addresses these indications. The powder is administered in doses ranging from half to two drachms, while the extract is used in doses four to five times smaller.”Footnote ²⁶ The documentation of these pharmacological experiments is presented in his book Reise in Brasilien, as ethnographic observations on Brazil's customary social practices.

These ethnological annotations provide evidence of the chemical enhancement of strychnos pseudoquina in combating various Brazilian diseases. For instance, Martius noted that “the intense fevers which […] following the flood wreaked havoc among the inhabitants of Rio de S. Francisco, are either purely nervous fevers or, more commonly, typhoid fevers.”Footnote ²⁷ Cinchona plants were classified as a botanical genus known for their potential to invigorate the nervous system.Footnote ²⁸ The prevailing scientific paradigm in German pharmacology conceptualized therapeutics as a synthesis of plant and human vitalizing substances. Reflecting on the evolving vision of the medical profession, Martius argued that “physicians now concentrate more on accurately investigating the nature and history of the human body, how diseases affect it, and the chemical and morphological changes involved […] By focusing on the alterations in diseases related to universal organismic processes (referred to as ‘processes,’ given that all organic matter evolves at specific intervals), they seek to treat health with a few simple and well-established remedies [plant-based drugs].”Footnote ²⁹ In German pharmacology, it is evident that chemical experiments were conducted to systematize “pure” scientific knowledge concerning the organization of chemical properties in nature.Footnote ³⁰ In the early 19^th century, German chemists had already begun to develop chemical formulas as a theoretical tool to elucidate the chemical processes, relationships, and characteristics of various elements and compounds found in nature.Footnote ³¹ German chemical research in Brazil was part of a broader scientific trend targeted at determining the composition of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon in nature to validate chemical knowledge.Footnote ³²

These German experimental activities in Brazil must be contextualized within the broader framework of social objectives and utopian visions that characterized German pharmacology and medicine. In the early 19th century, the professional endeavors of a group of German physicians and pharmacists, viewed as proponents of “reasoned insight, law, common good, progress, and modernity,” were intrinsically regulated by and integrated into the bureaucratic systems of the German states.Footnote ³³ This symbiotic relationship with the state apparatus was evident in the cameralist policies of the German absolutist systems in the 18th century. The management of public health was framed as a state strategy to enhance and improve the quality of the population.Footnote ³⁴ In the early 19th century, the rational bureaucratization and administration of pharmacology and medicine involved a heightened enforcement of regulations concerning therapeutic practices, clinical treatment, and the production of medicinal drugs. This was notably achieved through pharmacopeias that prescribed the chemical composition and manufacturing methods of medications.Footnote ³⁵

As a state class of bureaucrats and Bildungsbürgertum (educated bourgeoisie), physicians and pharmacists enacted a state-modernizing ideology through their professional activities. In their therapeutic practices, physicians and pharmacists cultivated “bourgeois society to emancipate the individual's abilities in the interest of the whole.”Footnote ³⁶ These “educated” bureaucrats translated this vision into practical experiments with both scientific and social objectives, focused on modernization.Footnote ³⁷ As a well-established scientist in Bavaria during the 1840s, Martius asserted that “in this era of medicine [the early 19^th century], all those who prepare, more or less, by gathering and combining various natural substances, whose effects on the organism are known through their use, will contribute to this purpose. For this reason, I would like […] to encourage physicians to focus on the rich pharmacy of this land [Brazil], which undoubtedly contains many natural treasures that could be beneficial to us, the rulers of the world, for our health and well-being.”Footnote ³⁸ This scientific discourse elucidated the German pharmacological and medical perspective on the regulation, control, and reorganization of human composition and behavior, intended to enhance the health of human populations. This notion of health was imbued with values of social modernization and medicalization. By focusing on human bodies, health acquired a medico-cultural significance. The living forces of the human body, particularly those of the nervous system, needed to be potentiated through the curative properties of cinchona specimens. This materialist manipulation of living forces exemplified how biopolitical intervention in biological processes would manifest at the medical level. “The management of one's own body was socially regulated and controlled, and adherence to these norms could be seen as a measure of social integration and civilization.”Footnote ³⁹ This civilizing mission required not only hygienic personal behavior but also intervention in human bodies through curative plant life to ensure a social order of “civilized” and “healthy” bourgeois individuals.

Indigenous Knowledge as a Basis of Biopolitical Therapeutics

After allegedly determining the “organic laws” and “nature” of quina do campo as an antipyretic through botanical classification methods, Martius turned to chemical experimentation to explore the pharmaceutical potential of this plant. The combination with mercurius dulcis or mercury chloride was ostensibly intended to overcome the “natural” limitations of quina do campo, with the goal of enhancing its healing effects.Footnote ⁴⁰ In his research, the chemical preparation of mercurius dulcis and quina do campo intersected with Martius’ exploratory goals, becoming a subject of pharmaceutical study and experimentation in its own right. This process thus generated knowledge “in the making.”Footnote ⁴¹ The “natural” world emerged as a site for pharmacological practices, with indigenous therapeutic ideas underpinning the knowledge production in Martius’ pharmacological experiments.

Although the voices of German scientists and indigenous people did not hold equal value as sources of pharmacological authority, the scientific activity of the former was reliant on non-European bodies of knowledge. In mapping the curative properties of quina do campo, Martius initially identified its therapeutic use within the pharmacological practices of the sertanejos, or rural populations, which included indigenous groups. The latter “used it particularly for chronic stomach weakness, dyspepsia, and intermittent fevers.”Footnote ⁴² Martius developed a propensity to embrace traditional botanical knowledge because these ways of knowing were believed to be grounded in “nature” itself. For Martius, “nature” was an organic entity with a logic and “wisdom” of its own.Footnote ⁴³ “As the dominant principle in all the natives’ knowledge about natural things, their belief in the unity of nature can be identified. Everything earthly is interconnected, and all individual entities relate to one another.”Footnote ⁴⁴ In his medical ethnological studies, Martius reinterpreted the medicinal knowledge of the indigenous peoples of his time as “remnants of an earlier natural wisdom or traditions.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Martius argued that this “natural wisdom” remained active among the indigenous population, attributing it to their instinctual, “unbiased and far-reaching observation” inherent to all human beings. Footnote ⁴⁶

By virtue of this alleged instinct, the botanical expertise of Brazilian indigenous peoples “deserves the full attention of rational medicine.”Footnote ⁴⁷ He asserted that “these medicinal plants, in their fresh state […] quite often possess the most decisive healing powers.”Footnote ⁴⁸ For him, “nature” was a repository of “hidden” therapeutic wisdom and knowledge. Likewise, the study of indigenous knowledge provided “a multitude of important facts for ethnography and natural history.”Footnote ⁴⁹ However, these traditional medicinal ideas were considered underdeveloped and thus required rationalization. By this, Martius referred to the use of chemical decomposition to analyze the quantities of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen atoms in plants. As part of his ethnobotanical observations, Martius noted that his “companion [an indigenous individual], in particular, [who] had suffered from intermittent fever attacks for some time and was only able to alleviate them with cinchona and other bitter remedies, especially the root of Tachia gujanensis.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Martius’ approach to medicine provided insight into a broader German transnational pharmacological effort that classified Brazilian plants as “useful […] whose most essential uses have remained completely unknown to them [indigenous people].”Footnote ⁵¹ The cultural narratives of this German imperial pharmacology did not view plants as passive objects of study. Instead, they categorized botanical specimens, including cinchona specimens, as living entities endowed with inherent teleology and dynamism: “They [medicinal plants] are subject to a necessity from which they can only be rescued by their own strength, possibly with the assistance of benevolent natural forces [other organic substances].”Footnote ⁵² According to Martius, the indigenous understanding of the teleological living force of plants remained anchored in rudimentary therapeutic practices. He addressed this deficiency using “superior” methods or chemical procedures to identify and track “benevolent natural forces.”Footnote ⁵³

Situated within a vitalist framework, Martius collected botanical knowledge from indigenous medical practices involving cinchona genera. He maintained a favorable disposition toward indigenous medicine, noting that “their pharmacy is the forest.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Martius's apothecary and laboratory were not separate from this perspective; the Urwald, or primeval forest, served as both his workspace and a source of medical “wisdom.” He collected medicinal materials from the Brazilian ecosystem, such as quina do campo, and tested the “indications of the Indian materia medica” with “sober caution […] using them in his practice only after thorough examination.”Footnote ⁵⁵ German pharmacology became unequivocally a by-product of the historical interplay between German medicinal techniques and indigenous herbal practices. However, immersed in a pharmacological imagination geared towards enhancing plant life, Martius decontextualized Brazilian cinchona specimens from their indigenous uses. He subsequently reinscribed these cinchona specimens within German scientific thought, which encompassed a materialist conception of vital forces as both measurable and malleable.

The knowledge of indigenous peoples gained recognition within German pharmacological culture, though it was accorded less authority as a source of knowledge. Riedel, a member of Langsdorff's expedition, also ascribed significant scientific value to quina do campo. In his efforts to understand the chemical composition of Brazilian cinchonas, Riedel categorized this cinchona specimens as a plant that “contains no quinine. For hardening of the spleen, liver, and mesenteric glands. Bark extract with mercurius dulcis. Powder ½-2 drachms. The extract 4-5 times smaller.”Footnote ⁵⁶ It is difficult to ascertain how Riedel arrived at conclusions analogous to those of Martius concerning the medical and chemical aspects of quina do campo.Footnote ⁵⁷ Through his encounters with ethnobotanical practices, Riedel demonstrated a similar appreciation and validation of ethnomedicinal knowledge. The description of the adverse effects of quina do campo on the spleen, liver, and mesenteric glands was ultimately based on pharmacological data provided by indigenous sources among the sertanejos. The transformation of quina do campo into a pharmacological object reflected a hegemony of axioms and standards that legitimized scientific knowledge within German pharmacology. For Riedel, German chemical experimentation served as the ultimate means to validate practical knowledge. The chemical decoctions obtained from quina do campo exemplified a dialectical manufacturing process that integrated indigenous medical practices, empirical observation, and chemical manipulation, merging two distinct yet mutually constitutive forms of knowledge: European and non-European. This intricate exchange of ideas and techniques was facilitated by a cultural discourse that portrayed the Brazilian biosphere as a domain of interconnected living forces.

The chemical validation of Brazilian cinchona specimens within the context of German pharmacology was reflective of a knowledge regime that rendered “the reality of life both conceivable and calculable.”Footnote ⁵⁸ This process was rooted in materialist conceptions of organic life, in which vital forces were perceived to possess both a corporeal and malleable nature. The inherent complexity of plant life, as “the species that have given life to the world of forms,” was conceptualized as a collection of microscopic chemical substances, which were ostensibly subject to human manipulation, control, and reformulation.Footnote ⁵⁹ Within the framework of German pharmacology, these experiments, along with their underlying assumptions about life, contributed to the development of a knowledge system focused on systematically categorizing and regulating the life of cinchona plants. As previously noted, “systems of knowledge provide cognitive and normative frameworks that create biopolitical spaces and define both subjects and objects of intervention.”Footnote ⁶⁰ This German pharmacological knowledge system, which shaped public health policies designed to control the populace, was supported by a hybrid epistemology. It not only acknowledged and incorporated indigenous ethnomedical knowledge but also prioritized German chemical classifications and experimental methodologies. Although these pharmacological regimes proved useful in supporting practices to manage human life, they did not function as epistemological tools intended to suppress local Brazilian forms of ethnomedicine. Instead, a notable degree of mutual learning and exchange existed, emphasizing that the cross-fertilization of medicinal knowledge between German and Brazilian sources was a common occurrence.

Nevertheless, once extracted from indigenous frameworks of knowledge, Brazilian cinchonas underwent an ontological transformation through German experimentation. According to Martius, cinchona decoctions represented an artificial chemical composite of both non-living entities–usually minerals–and living matter. Cinchona thus functioned not only as an object of study but also as a biopolitical technology: “Biopolitics’ last domain is […] control over relations between the human race, or human beings insofar as they are species, insofar as they are living beings, and their environment, the milieu in which they live.”Footnote ⁶¹ This living mass encompassed more than the management of human health, racial and sexual reproduction, or hygienic behavior.Footnote ⁶² The control of diseases and the enhancement of plants’ curative properties constituted a biopolitical effort by German scientists in Brazil to achieve “an overall equilibrium that protects the security of the whole [human populations] from internal dangers.”Footnote ⁶³ For German pharmacology, diseases interacted with human and plant species within a framework of biological contingency and spontaneity. Illnesses could intermittently emerge from climatic phenomena and biological materials in decay, thereby posing an unabated and pernicious threat to human populations.Footnote ⁶⁴ “The extractive substances from some decaying plant parts that have been absorbed, and perhaps also the lack of refreshing air movement […] might be the reasons for the reduced salubrity of the nearby stagnant waters.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Diseases were perceived as a biological threat that required regulation and control. According to Martius, this interplay of biological beings resulted from human civilization's interaction with nature: “Insatiable […] civilization drags all of nature around it into its powerful current.”Footnote ⁶⁶ In German pharmacology, cinchona, regarded as an entity of “nature,” was transformed into a pharmacological technology leveraged to control the “natural” habitat of diseases.

Local Knowledge, Pharmacology and Biopolitics

In 1822, Sello's expedition in Paraguay was made possible through the active involvement of an enslaved individual of Nâgo ethnicity, a group originating from the West African region of Benin, who was under Sello's ownership.Footnote ⁶⁷ “My guide, a big, strong Negro born in Paraguay, was very talkative and uninhibited in his questions.”Footnote ⁶⁸ During his journey from Paraguay into the Brazilian hinterlands, Sello recorded a variety of the region's mineral resources, including granite, and made note of the presence of cinchona bark in his botanical observations. He observed that “the solanum pseudoquina is commonly known and highly regarded here, much like a rubiaceae also referred to as quina [cinchona bark], which was shown to me.”Footnote ⁶⁹ As part of his ethnobotanical observations on “the preparation of the herbs,” Sello highlighted the crucial role of “those who know more” in crafting plant-based herbal decoctions in the rainforest.Footnote ⁷⁰ According to Sello, the preparation of therapeutic remedies from solanum pseudoquina involved a series of spiritual invocations. He noted that “several neighbors came to see the caves on this occasion […] and they occasionally prayed in the large cave and made vows to their invisible saints.”Footnote ⁷¹

For Sello, the identity of these “wise people” was closely linked to the life and traditions of rural areas in Brazil, specifically the capoeiras – uninhabited landscapes of wild scrub and brush.Footnote ⁷² He referred to these “people who know more” as rural inhabitants near the São Paulo region, noting that they had “ample fodder for dairy cows and horses or mules.”Footnote ⁷³ Sello alluded to a geographical isolation that defined the lives and mobility of these “people who know more.” In the context of 19th-century Brazilian slavery, runaway Black individuals often sought refuge in these capoeiras to escape enslavement on plantations, establishing places of freedom known as quilombos.Footnote ⁷⁴ The capoeiras offered secluded spaces where Black individuals could engage in agricultural and pastoral activities, utilize local vegetation for therapeutic purposes, and venerate their Orixás – religious deities from the Yoruba religion.Footnote ⁷⁵ It is difficult to ascertain with certainty whether the therapeutic practices observed by Sello corresponded to the ethnobotanical rituals of Brazilian quilombos, despite their apparent resemblance. However, it is evident that Sello gathered information on medicinal plants through ethnological observations. He exhibited a clear openness to acknowledging ethno-traditional medicinal knowledge from Brazilian local groups. His encounters with solanum pseudoquina were similarly guided and informed by the expertise of local informants, including his guide from Benin.

Reliance on oral forms of medicinal knowledge became commonplace in Sello's botanical explorations. For example, during his 1828 journey from Curitiba to Paranaguá, Sello encountered and collected bark from solanum pseudoquina.Footnote ⁷⁶ According to Sello, this plant “was discovered by the father of the current Capitão Mor [Governor Captain], who, despite lacking botanical expertise over his sixty years, deduced from the plant's bitter taste that it was cinchona.”Footnote ⁷⁷ The identification of solanum pseudoquina did not follow a controlled laboratory process; rather, it relied on a diverse array of local knowledge sources and methods to validate the plant's pharmaceutical value.

On the one hand, the perspective of Capitão Mor's father, a governor of rural communities in the Curitiba region, reflected a transnational discourse concerning the bitter taste of cinchona. This characteristic had been integrated into Brazilian popular medicinal practices as a criterion for identifying and validating various genera of cinchona.Footnote ⁷⁸ In fact, this narrative was collectively embraced by various groups engaged in the transmission of therapeutic knowledge across the world, including Spanish pharmacologists, Portuguese apothecaries, enslaved healers in the American South, French colonists in Algeria, Ottoman traders, British imperial physicians, Peruvian cinchona collectors, and other medical experts and users.Footnote ⁷⁹ On the other hand, Sello's botanical annotations offer archival insights into a German pharmacological and botanical culture that was intricately interwoven with an intercultural and unconventional foundation of epistemological authorities, pharmaceutical principles, and standards of “objectivity.”Footnote ⁸⁰ Orality played a legitimizing role, functioning as a normalized and objective method for generating knowledge about solanum pseudoquina. This approach preceded the formal inscription of Brazilian cinchona plants into the domains of chemical decomposition, evaporation, crystallization, and pharmaceutical reconfiguration. The oral discourse of local voices exerted a notable influence on German pharmacological culture. An oral form of knowledge acquisition occurred prior to the decontextualization of this botanical specimen from its ethnobotanical origins and its local harvesting in Brazil.Footnote ⁸¹ For German scientists, orality complemented the processes of observing, documenting, and extracting the medicinal properties of solanum pseudoquina. Within German pharmacological culture, expertise regarding this plant initially emerged from a cultural context that incorporated herbs into ritualistic practices. These unconventional methods of generating medicinal knowledge intersected with the biopolitical orientation of German pharmacology – a system of therapeutic practices aimed at enhancing the healing capacities of plants for the betterment and modernization of German society through public health policies.Footnote ⁸²

Sello was not the only empiricist aware of the purported antifebrile properties of solanum pseudoquina. Martius also acknowledged its utility as “one of the best bitter remedies.” In his work Systema Materiae Medicae Vegetabilis Brasiliensis, Martius indicated the potential for chemical experiments to enhance the plant's healing properties. He contended that this chemical improvement could be achieved through “soluble resin in water, nitrogenous matter combined with potash and lime, unctuous matter, and oxalic and phosphoric lime, as well as iron.”Footnote ⁸³ Local knowledge regarding solanum pseudoquina served as a foundation for German pharmacological practices. However, Martius envisioned a pharmacological paradigm in which drugs, primarily derived from the plant kingdom, were “elaborated and extracted through chemical processes.”Footnote ⁸⁴ This approach facilitated the further development of chemical decoctions, extractions, and infusions, contributing to a German ideal of pharmacological advancement.Footnote ⁸⁵ “I am absolutely certain,” Martius affirmed, “that in the progress of the same medicine, the doctrine of specific medications […] also becomes increasingly firm and more verified.”Footnote ⁸⁶ This chemical intervention led to an epistemological displacement, or epistemischer Bruch, of solanum pseudoquina from its local habitat into a realm of enhanced material living forces – a corporeality defined by the observable, verifiable, and measurable.

This reinscription into German chemical conventions facilitated the establishment of a German medical system that integrated enhanced forms of cinchona's organic compounds with other chemical alkaloids. Beyond the treatment of diseases, one of its objectives was to uphold a bourgeois social order through the optimization and regulation of the sanitary practices of German citizens. By the 1830s, the human body was already regarded as a site of state regulation in the German territories, with public hygiene concepts deeply embedded in the cultural framework of the bourgeois medical community.Footnote ⁸⁷ In this paradigm, individual hygiene, nutrition, and prophylactic measures were regarded as essential virtues of a modern, healthy German society.Footnote ⁸⁸ These sanitary habits needed to be developed, cultivated, and disseminated throughout the German territories.

German physicians benefited significantly from the chemical experiments conducted by German pharmacists, who successfully extracted the alkaloids from various cinchona variants, namely quinine and cinchonine.Footnote ⁸⁹ Specifically, the extraction of quinine enabled doctors to develop purportedly enhanced therapeutic methods for addressing epidemics. For instance, during the cholera epidemic of the 1830s, the Germans employed quinine in conjunction with other medicinal plants, such as ipecacuanha, opium, and vanilla, to stimulate what they referred to as the “vital forces” of the human body, which were believed to reside within the nervous system.Footnote ⁹⁰ German physician Woldemar Nissen from Nienstädten noted that “through these means [the use of quinine as a cure and prophylactic], the normal nourishment of the nerves was promoted.”Footnote ⁹¹ This approach became a widely accepted conception of the most effective anti-cholera therapeutics. Quinine garnered a reputation as “the most suitable medication for the fundamental nature of cholera,” based on the clinical observations of the German physician Ludwig Wilhelm Sachs.Footnote ⁹² The perceived medical value of quinine stemmed from the belief that cinchona acted as an antipyretic, thereby strengthening the human body. Sachs stressed the importance of prioritizing quinine as an anti-cholera remedy to “properly invigorate, support, strengthen, and correctly guide the fluctuating and, in any case, weakened organic energies.”Footnote ⁹³ This therapeutic application represented not only a medical innovation but also a significant experiment within the German medical community, as quinine was, for the first time, associated with and used as a potential anti-cholera drug in German pharmacology. Interestingly, the seeds of a biopolitical language and conception were already present among German physicians. For these doctors, human life was dissected and compartmentalized into material living forces and organs.Footnote ⁹⁴ These material forces could be potentiated and regenerated through the technical intervention of pharmacological drugs, which were chemically enhanced to stimulate the human nervous system.Footnote ⁹⁵

German healing methods were grounded in a therapeutic rationale that supported public health campaigns designed to foster and sustain “healthy” bodies through “rational” lifestyles and treatments.Footnote ⁹⁶ This biologizing conception of German civilization in the early 19th century was not predicated on polygenetic racial theories – scientific notions positing that human races have distinct origins and asymmetrical racial compositions – or evolutionary concepts. Furthermore, this cultural discourse predated the holistic biological perspectives within the German scientific community of the late 19th century, which linked the bodies of Germans as a collective to environmental organisms, as noted by historian Lynn Nyhart.Footnote ⁹⁷ In the early 19th century, the biologizing aspects of German civilization, prevalent among German doctors, were based on cultural tropes of “healthy” lifestyles and bodies with functional living forces or substances. The German medical discourse conceptually segregated human bodies and plants into entities with living forces subject to medical manipulation, aimed not at improving a German race, but at optimizing the organs of a German population according to bourgeois values. This mode of medical thinking translated into actual public health policies that upheld a biopolitical practice of human engineering, focused on producing a “healthy” bourgeois social fabric.Footnote ⁹⁸ German physician L. Grüneberg recommended herbal medicines “to alleviate spasms and enhance diminished vitality [caused by cholera], focusing less on the root causes of these phenomena and more on using oxygenated and acid-astringent remedies, such as quinine and aromatic acid tinctures, to complete the treatment.”Footnote ⁹⁹ The cholera epidemic of the 1830s evinced how the use of quinine was integrated into a holistic treatment approach intended for a social engineering initiative: addressing poverty as a source of disease and a threat to a German bourgeois utopian ideal.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ German physician Kaufmann observed that cholera “usually prevails only where it encounters individuals who are defenseless against it, more susceptible due to their incorrect way of living.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ For German doctors, the use of quinine as a “rational” remedy and prophylactic complemented public sanitation campaigns. These efforts were focused on improving cleanliness in the homes of the poor, promoting the consumption of “rational” food, and encouraging a lifestyle of “moral” restraint. For example, it was essential to ensure the circulation of fresh air in households, avoid spoiled food, maintain only marital sexual relations, and prevent the accumulation of stagnant water near homes – practices symbolizing a more “refined” way of living.Footnote ¹⁰² Such individual measures were believed to maximize the effectiveness of quinine in treating diseases. By addressing poverty, it was thought that diseases would have fewer vectors of transmission, thereby protecting entire populations.

These cultural values aligned with the bourgeois moral order of the early 19th century, which characterized the social class of German bureaucrats and reformers, including physicians and apothecaries. According to historian Thomas Nipperdey, this class cultivated a utopian vision as architects of a modern German society and state in the post-Napoleonic era: “Man is more than a means, a cog in a machine; he is also an end in himself, autonomous, capable of self-determination, and self-active […] The reform towards autonomy and responsibility, towards a new human, towards ‘rebirth,’ and towards the ‘ennoblement of humanity’.”Footnote ¹⁰³ The anti-cholera function of quinine was part of the development of a new medical imagination that framed health as a social hygiene issue requiring biopolitical management and regulation of human bodies for the collective good.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The post-Napoleonic anti-cholera campaigns, which validated quinine as an effective prophylactic, transformed this “ennoblement of humanity” into tangible public health initiatives directed towards regulating human behavior.

The biopolitical function of quinine extended beyond German public health programs and sanitation initiatives. These social engineering practices were made possible by German apothecaries who sourced biological material from various regions to extract, validate, and authenticate the curative properties of different cinchona types, such as Brazilian solanum pseudoquina, china suriname, Peruvian china fusca, and Jamaican china caribbaea.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The chemical comparison of these cinchona specimens allowed German apothecaries – primary institutions for chemical experimentation and pharmacological production in the German territories – to identify the Peruvian and Ecuadorian specimens with the highest levels of quinine.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The chemical decomposition of cinchona plants into their alkaloid forms required a method of comparative analysis, a standard practice in early 19th-century chemistry. In this method, the same organic specimens were decomposed with chemical acids to obtain the purest forms of antipyretic substances. Subsequently, the alkaloids obtained from each cinchona specimen – from Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and the Caribbean – were to be compared with the purpose of determining which cinchona genus exhibited greater antifebrile potency. Consequently, German apothecaries developed extensive networks with German scientific expeditions in Latin America. For instance, the Hamburg-based pharmacist, Heinrich von Bergen, obtained various types of cinchona from Brazil through his connections with German scientists. In his pharmacological treatises, Bergen detailed his efforts to acquire fresh bark and flowering specimens of different cinchona varieties: “With each expedition departing directly from here to South America, I have thoroughly informed the respective cargo owners of my desires, provided them with detailed instructions, and offered means for obtaining the specimens through exchange if necessary.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Although it is difficult to pinpoint all the scientists with whom he collaborated, it is clear that he worked with multiple individuals, including Karl von Martius. These transnational scientific networks linked German apothecaries, sites of organic life technification into useful pharmacological tools, with other spaces of biopolitical practice, including the experimentation of German explorers with Brazil's local population.

Biopolitical Experiments in Brazil

The interaction between German scientists and Brazilian cinchona specimens comprised not only the extraction of local knowledge but also experimentation with local populations, including enslaved individuals. In his investigations into the causes of diseases in Brazil, Langsdorff noted that “almost nobody escapes from malignant intermittent fever.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ While formulating a pharmaceutical remedy, Langsdorff observed that “the few occurrences of this disease (cold fever) still belong to the last rainy season.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Attuned to nosological theories about water as vectors of disease, Langsdorff frequently advocated for cinchona-based remedies to combat fever, “such as in the case of a child aged one and fourteen months who, six months ago, contracted it from its wet nurse. I prescribed a cinchona infusion for the wet nurse; for the child, cinchona with milk.”Footnote ¹¹⁰ This typically included the use of salt ammoniac. Wet nurses, who were often enslaved women responsible for breastfeeding the children of their masters, were among those subjected to medical interventions.Footnote ¹¹¹ Langsdorff's reports did not provide specific details about the origin or social status of this specific wet nurse; however, his language reflects the local racial categories of Brazilian society. In Brazil, “wet nurses” were identified as enslaved individuals.Footnote ¹¹² In addition, Langsdorff's provision of medical assistance to this wet nurse may be considered an altruistic act, as he “could not help it providing medical assistance to some ill people.”Footnote ¹¹³ While this point is not disputed, it is evident that he employed enslaved bodies for medical experimentation. This underscores a normalized connection between enslavement and scientific practice in the German pharmaceutical context. It is also important to demonstrate that enslaved people were not the only members of Brazilian society subjected to therapeutic experimentation with cinchona drugs. During his visit to Vila Diamantino, Langsdorff administered, for instance, cinchona decoctions to a “woman of middle age who suffered an attack of fever with shivers and completely lost her consciousness and voice.”Footnote ¹¹⁴

Langsdorff investigated the potential causal relationship between unsanitary water deposits and fever-related diseases. He concluded from the reiteration of experiments that, in cases of fever, “its onset and cause may reflect nature's attempt to restore balance between illness and health.”Footnote ¹¹⁵ In other words, he recognized the possibility of fever as a symptom rather than a direct cause of disease. Langsdorff's expedition thus served multiple purposes: extracting biological materials, developing new therapeutic methods, and providing explanations for diseases encountered in both Brazilian and German contexts. The generation of medical knowledge through empirical observation extended beyond geographic and laboratory boundaries. Understanding the origins of diseases and developing effective treatments became central to German medical experimentation in Brazil. This process involved not only the use of local plants but also the testing of European theories about water as a disease vector on Brazilian human subjects.Footnote ¹¹⁶ The notion of stagnant, polluted water as a source of disease deeply influenced early 19th-century German pathology and continued to shape explanations of cholera in the 1830s.

Langsdorff's experimentation with local populations in Brazil foreshadowed the public health biopolitical practices that would emerge during the cholera epidemic of the 1830s in the German territories. In his investigations, particularly in Vila Diamantino, “a region deemed highly insalubrious,” Langsdorff tested various Brazilian cinchona types.Footnote ¹¹⁷ His medical observations often reiterated European theories about disease, emphasizing the role of hygienic conditions and individual behavior. He noted: “add to all this [the abundance of swampy and putrid water] the predisposition to diseases in weakened, debilitated, emaciated, jaundiced bodies, victims of the dissolute lives they lead and the excesses they commit: they play cards day and night, eat and drink without moderation.”Footnote ¹¹⁸ For this reason, cinchona drugs were widely administered to individuals in Vila Diamantino suffering from fever, including Joaquim Gomes Bezerra, a neighbor of the previously mentioned enslaved wet nurse. Specific details about Bezerra's condition and background remain scarce.

Langsdorff's anti-fever campaign using Brazilian cinchona specimens reflected a reductionist view of human life, treating it as composed of material bodies and living substances. Langsdorff's therapeutic strategies in Vila Diamantino exemplified early attempts to address the social conditions that exacerbated the health of debilitated individuals. Thus, the village's lifestyle and socioeconomic factors became central to medical scrutiny and intervention. Langsdorff's emphasis on the biological and social conditions of the population led to the creation of analytical categories such as “emaciated organisms,”Footnote ¹¹⁹ which reduced human life and its psyche to material substances, organs and physical forces.Footnote ¹²⁰ These medical frameworks formed the theoretical backdrop against which Brazilian cinchona plants were tested and validated as invigorating tonics. In this technified approach to organic life, Brazilian cinchona drugs were incorporated into a scientific discourse that aligned with broader practices of biopolitical management and regulation of human bodies.

Beyond generating pure chemical knowledge, Langsdorff's pharmacological experiments also elucidated the scope and limitations of cinchona specimens as a therapeutic technology for diseases perceived to have social causality. Brazilian cinchona plants were not merely tools detached from their social context; they were conceptualized and tested as tonics or stimulants for human vitality within German pharmacological practices.Footnote ¹²¹ In his studies, Langsdorff demonstrated that solanum pseudoquina, collected from “the thickets [that] contain guavas […] bauhinia, solanum, eupatorium,” was effective against fever due to its systematic use throughout his expedition.Footnote ¹²² Langsdorff evaluated German “modern” therapeutic techniques and theories of morbidity and disease etiology by employing solanum pseudoquina in human bodies. These German medical theories often framed diseases as endemic to specific regions, such as the so-called “malignant fever.”Footnote ¹²³ This perspective objectified Brazil as a land predisposed to various fevers due to conditions of poverty and “torrid” weather.Footnote ¹²⁴ Such medical thought was reflective of a broader trend in European medical discourses. Langsdorff's experiments with cinchona specimens must be understood within this cultural imaginary. He posited that environmental factors, such as poor ventilation and stagnant air, contributed to the spread of disease: “Due to the lack of ventilation and fresh air, air currents form, producing mephitic vapors, which render not only the vicinity of the springs but also the entire surrounding region unhealthy.”Footnote ¹²⁵ Additionally, Langsdorff wrote that “my research and observations,” which employed cinchona against fever diseases, proved that “the consumption of stagnant pond water is the main cause of intermittent fever.”Footnote ¹²⁶ Reservoirs of polluted water were believed to breed, especially, fever-related diseases.

For German medical thought, all fever diseases belonged to a common family of pathologies. It is no wonder that the cholera of the 1830s, identified as an Asian disease, was associated with the same genealogy of fever diseases from Brazil. “On this second line of magnetic indifference [East Brazil], or at least near it, is the source of yellow fever, the American counterpart of the Asian plague [cholera].”Footnote ¹²⁷ It is not implausible to believe, given his transnational networks and communication with other German scientists, that Langsdorff was one among many German physicians who, with his medical observations in Brazil, contributed to the pathologization of Brazil as a wellspring of fever diseases. To understand Langsdorff's medical experiments, they must be viewed as transnational and decentralized biopolitical practices. His experiments with Brazilian cinchona varieties in the 1820s represented one facet of the biopolitical manipulation of human bodies.

Managing the behavior and bodies of the poor in the German territories in the 1830s stemmed from prior experimentation with various cinchona plants. This activity ranged from chemical procedures in German apothecaries to improvised antifebrile treatments in Brazilian enclaves of poverty, such as Vila Diamantino. The latter offered opportunities to determine the medical value of Brazilian cinchona types: their power to enliven weakened human bodies in conditions of pauperism. In other words, Langsdorff recombined and merged plant and human species to chart how the so-called fever diseases could be theorized about, controlled, and repelled. Vila Diamantino became a living laboratory where diseases and human organisms were intermingled. This pauperized town provided human substrata to probe the breeding, development, and behavior of fever maladies. “I will try,” Langsdorff asserted, “to investigate the causes of this [malignant] fever and diseases during my stay here.”Footnote ¹²⁸ This biological experimental material – human bodies in fever-ridden social and climatic conditions – also enabled the testing of the antifebrile effects of the Brazilian cinchona family. Thus, experimentations in Brazil enriched the pharmacological inventories of German apothecaries, private institutions regulated by state bureaucracies, such as the Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts, und Medizinal-Angelegenheiten in Prussia.Footnote ¹²⁹ These apothecaries primarily marketed tinctures and decoctions based on Peruvian and Ecuadorian cinchona types. But the use of Brazilian and Caribbean specimens was not uncommon. They frequently appeared under the label china nova.Footnote ¹³⁰ This linkage demonstrates how an early form of pharmacological capitalism in the German territories was informed by and tacitly abetted German scientific expeditions in Brazil.

Settlement Plantations as Sites of Pharmacological Activity

In the German territories, pharmacological expertise was cultivated, reinvented, and tested within a dynamic nexus that intertwined chemical practices, mobile laboratory spaces, and mercantile interests. German apothecaries served as crucial sites for both the industrial production of therapeutic substances and the experimentation with new compounds. This ecosystem of scientific ideas relied heavily on organic matter, often necessitating the exploitation of resources from the Atlantic world. This region provided fertile ground for exploratory endeavors, offering a rich array of botanical specimens and natural resources that were of interest to the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, the exploration and exploitation of natural resources occurred within a broader context marked by enslavement and the exchange of knowledge between different cultures. This extraction of botanical material was not simply a matter of scientific inquiry or industrial production but rather a multifaceted enterprise that intersected with economic, social, and ethical considerations.

The case of Nova Friburgo, founded by a Brazilian elite of enslavers and Swiss colonists in 1818, serves as a poignant example of how Central European colonial ventures in Brazil were intertwined with the institution of enslavement within a capitalist liberal economic system.Footnote ¹³¹ Founded through a collaboration between Portuguese slavers and Swiss colonists, Nova Friburgo epitomized a blend of civilizational ideology and economic exploitation.Footnote ¹³² While the Swiss-German immigrants may have been driven by ideas of cultural modernization and work ethics, their success in coffee agriculture relied intensely on the labor of enslaved individuals.Footnote ¹³³ The bureaucratic administration of Nova Friburgo during the 1820s was dominated by Brazilian-Portuguese elites who, as Brazilian historian Emília Viotti da Costa explains, were primarily invested in the perpetuation of enslaved labor for economic gain.Footnote ¹³⁴ This convergence of interests between local elites and immigrant settlers facilitated the proliferation of enslaved labor in the colony, mirroring the production practices of other European colonial powers.Footnote ¹³⁵

The establishment of a medical system with a hospital and an apothecary within the Nova Friburgo settlement colony exemplifies how healthcare infrastructure was integrated into the colonial project. The financing of medical drugs by the Brazilian government underscores the significance of healthcare provision within the colony. In correspondence with the Portuguese imperial government, José F. de Castilho, Portuguese manager of the colony, stated: “these medicines are already for the ordinary pharmacy of the colony, which Mr. José Caetano Sequizer will be supplying, receiving the money as promptly as ever.”Footnote ¹³⁶ The involvement of Swiss-German pharmacists, particularly Böhle and Boélé, in managing the apothecary underscores the Swiss-German influence on medical practices within the Nova Friburgo settlement. The inclusion of cortex chinae and extractum chinae, commonly known as cinchona bark and cinchona extract, in the colony's pharmacological inventory highlights their adoption as standard medications.Footnote ¹³⁷ Although the specific pharmacological origins of these drugs within the Swiss-German context are not explicitly detailed, the professional backgrounds of the apothecaries and doctors suggests a strong European intellectual influence. In other words, European production of cinchona medications was a significant component of the everyday medical practices in Nova Friburgo.Footnote ¹³⁸

The widespread use of cinchona preparations among Swiss-German colonists in Brazil illustrates a deeply entrenched pharmacological culture oriented towards the artificial enhancement of organic life, indirectly linked to the capitalist system of enslavement. Nova Friburgo, with its focus on coffee trade, epitomized one of the economic frontiers that revitalized trans-Atlantic slave-based production in the 19th century, similar to the cotton system in the American South and sugar plantations in Cuba.Footnote ¹³⁹ The integration of cinchona preparations into daily medical practices within the colony foregrounds the entanglements of European scientific knowledge with colonial ventures, showcasing how European pharmacological advancements became woven into the fabric of colonial economic systems. This linkage further connected Central Europe with the Atlantic world through the dissemination of medical practices that upheld the integrity of the colony, thereby contributing to the expansion of the liberal capitalist system.

The possibility of Langsdorff acquiring cinchona decoctions at Boélé's apothecary in Nova Friburgo is plausible, although there is no direct evidence to confirm this connection. In the early 1820s, Langsdorff, “after organizing the notes and materials brought from […] Nova Friburgo […] embarked on a larger journey to the Province of Minas Gerais.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Langsdorff's exploration in Nova Friburgo and the surrounding areas, as well as his subsequent trip to the Province of Minas Gerais, involved a series of stopovers where botanical specimens were collected and prepared for dispatch to Russia. In these locations, plants were sorted into small boxes after a period of acclimatization.Footnote ¹⁴¹ It is plausible that Langsdorff could have acquired pharmacological supplies, including cinchona preparations, for use during his voyage to Nova Friburgo. The fact that Langsdorff utilized chemical preparations of cinchona suggests a broader trend of itinerant pharmacological activity during this period. Although there is no concrete evidence directly linking Langsdorff to Boélé's apothecary, the commercial enterprise of supplying pharmacological goods in colonial settlements such as Nova Friburgo may have supported Langsdorff's explorations and the wider patterns of colonial trade.

Integral to German expeditions were the diverse botanical species that thrived around German settlement colonies. Langsdorff's establishment of the Mandioca plantation in 1816 illustrates the tangible manifestation of German colonial aspirations in Brazil during the early 19th century. This plantation, involved in the cultivation of yucca, coffee, and corn, served as a focal point for agricultural production and European exploration efforts. Situated on the outskirts of the mountainous region of Serra d'Estrella in Rio de Janeiro, Mandioca provided shelter and support to European visitors and explorers amidst the challenging Brazilian landscape. The establishment of plantations in Mandioca represented a private colonizing project that intertwined with German territorial expansion and cultural aspirations.Footnote ¹⁴² These endeavors were not merely fictional or discursive, as argued by Zantop, but constituted tangible efforts to assert German presence and influence in the Brazilian hinterlands.Footnote ¹⁴³ During his visit to Langsdorff's estate, Georg Anton Schäffer, a German recruiter of migrants from Bremen and Hamburg, acknowledged that “the estate of the state councillor Langsdorff […] has clearly demonstrated what German agriculture can achieve in Brazil. With twenty slaves, a well-ordered agricultural enterprise has been established here, which not only produces all of its own needs but also abundant field and garden crops.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴ In the pre-unification era, these plantations in agricultural settlements symbolized the materialization of German colonial aspirations for modernization, which had permeated the German cultural milieu since the 17th century.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ In addition, Friedrich von Weech, a German explorer, remarked that “Herr von Langsdorff intended to manage his fazenda [farm or plantation] according to rational principles.”Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Despite his cosmopolitan background and scientific pursuits, Langsdorff was deeply committed to transforming Mandioca into a larger German colony with German immigrants, demonstrating his desire to establish a distinctly German cultural presence in Brazil.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Yet, Langsdorff's commitment to modernization compelled him to acquire enslaved individuals, who lacked legal subjecthood, for the purposes of tilling and harvesting the land.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

Not only did Mandioca provide opportunities for the cultivation of plants with an agricultural objective, but it also became a site for collecting cinchona specimens. Langsdorff hoped that “this paradisiacal land will become increasingly known and visited by more Europeans with a scientific and entrepreneurial spirit,” who will give a new impetus to the improvement of native and foreign plants and fruits.”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Two antifebrile cinchonas, known as quina do mato and quina do Piauhy, whose cinchona identity was in dispute, were collected by both Martius and Riedel in the vicinity of Mandioca, although not simultaneously.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ In a leaflet about the practical usage of Brazilian flora for medicine in 1829, Martius emphasized that “the vegetable substances are undoubtedly the most interesting, and these are required not only in their raw state but also in a few carefully collected specimens with some art, in order to be recognized and scientifically analyzed.”Footnote ¹⁵¹ In the case of Mandioca, Martius found an enclave to conduct the examination of cinchona plants for subsequent chemical transformation.

Similarly, between 1820 and 1830, Riedel chronicled encounters with various cinchona specimens near Mandioca. Specifically, Riedel documented the presence of quina do mato and quina do Piauhy as “bitter, mucilaginous” barks, taxonomically identifying them as exostema cuspidatum.Footnote ¹⁵² While Riedel's lists do not contain detailed commentaries on the specific methods of his chemical preparations using Brazilian cinchonas, his annotations suggest that he experimented with various types of cinchona and local plants to produce decoctions, infusions, and powders for medicinal purposes. “The common diseases are […] diarrhea, hemorrhoids, corruption [malignant fever]. In cases of bad or putrid fever, which you recognize by a dry and rough tongue, you can administer an emetic made from Ipecacuanha […] As a drink, a concoction of the root of Aristolochia (mil homens), (cordo santo) here Argemone mexicana. The root of Cassia foetida (Fedagosa), the root of Dorstenia (Carrapia Casopia); Cinchona, the root of Elephantopus (sossoya), and ⅛ of the oriental stone, these are boiled together.”Footnote ¹⁵³ Through his experimentation, Riedel sought to understand the therapeutic properties of these botanical specimens and their effectiveness in treating diseases. This practical approach to botanical exploration elucidates the connection of scientific inquiry and medical activity in Riedel's work, illustrating a hands-on methodology for understanding the pharmacological potential of plants native to the Brazilian landscape. Riedel's aggregation of botanical specimens into antifebrile medicine utilizing cinchona bark was reflective of a European chemical method of combining various organic compounds to enhance the curative properties of plant materials.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Yet, this practical engagement with Brazilian cinchona bark became possible largely due to German plantations, which served as enclaves of scientific activity within a milieu of normalized enslavement.

Riedel's pharmacological activities spotlighted the flexible and adaptable nature of cinchona as a botanical category in German pharmacology, in which different types of cinchona bark could be used interchangeably. For instance, quina do Rio de Janeiro was deemed “effective in decoction.”Footnote ¹⁵⁵ Riedel's use of cinchona in pharmacological decoctions underscored this versatility, as he likely employed any available type of cinchona bark – quina do mato, quina mineira, quina de Piauhy, or quina de S. Paulo – that was available and deemed suitable for the treatment of febrile diseases.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Cinchona thus emerged as a malleable and adaptable pharmacological plant within the context of “fever” diseases and antipyretic properties. German pharmacological and botanical activities emerged from an imperial yet hybrid pharmacological culture, characterized by geographical mobility and experimentation with varying cinchona preparations. Riedel was among several German scientists who utilized indigenous knowledge to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of cinchona plants. The medicinal use of dorstenia and aristolochia, known as mil homens, was a pharmacological practice among Brazilian indigenous people for antifebrile purposes, as documented by Martius and Langsdorff.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ Riedel likely became familiar with the indigenous use of these plants as supplementary medicinal herbs in antifebrile decoctions through correspondence with Martius and Langsdorff or his own ethnographic research. Riedel's inclination to utilize indigenous medicinal knowledge related to cinchona corresponded to the larger German medical thought, which recognized the scientific value of Brazilian local traditional knowledge.Footnote ¹⁵⁸

In these German agricultural settlements, the pharmacological production of cinchona-based drugs was also linked to utopian projects of German civilization in Brazil, which involved biopolitical practices. The partitioning and commercialization of agricultural land for German immigrants were formalized by an imperial immigration decree in Brazil in 1808, described as “a means of spreading European civilization in the tropics.”Footnote ¹⁵⁹ The enforcement of this sanction remained effective even after Brazil's transition from a Portuguese colony to the formation of the Brazilian Empire in 1822.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ This decree encouraged the influx of European immigrants with the goal of “whitening” the Brazilian racial composition. This civilizing project necessitated the establishment of medical infrastructure, including apothecaries, as a critical component of medical modernization, aligning with both German medical thought and Brazil's public health policies.Footnote ¹⁶¹ Influenced by European pharmacopeias and the Rio de Janeiro Medical Society, the municipal administration of Nova Friburgo implemented a regime of pharmacological drugs as part of a “modern” medical approach.Footnote ¹⁶² The use of these drugs, along with the establishment of agricultural plantations and a housing system, was intended to support German colonies and, ultimately, to improve the Brazilian “race” through the arrival of white European immigrants. These immigrants would occupy uninhabited lands and extend “white” civilization with their perceived “industrious” and “diligent” qualities, regarded as attributes of a superior culture.Footnote ¹⁶³ This racial discourse, endorsed by the Brazilian royal state during the founding of Nova Friburgo and Mandioca, was representative of a biopolitical intervention designed for the racial reengineering of the Brazilian population through miscegenation or by replacing the black race with the free labor of the white “race.”Footnote ¹⁶⁴ The attempt to transform the racial composition of entire populations to produce a supposedly superior human species was not uncommon in certain imperial contexts, such as the French Empire. As early as the late 18th century, bureaucrats with scientific backgrounds, serving in the colonial administration of Saint-Domingue, enacted laws aimed at promoting interracial marriages with the objective of “improving” the black race with the white European “blood.” The goal was to create genotypes deemed more suitable for military purposes and the protection of the island.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ Biopolitical discourses involving biological intervention in human populations for the purposes of state-building were already widespread across various polities.

This Brazilian racial ideology, commensurate with a German imperial vision, promoted the expansion and preservation of German cultural values of “work diligence” and “thriftiness” in Brazil.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ Its vision was more geared towards the transformation of Brazil's land through German “ingenuity” and labor.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ In this context, “medicine would become a technique of knowledge/power, serving both as a ‘scientific seizure on biological and organic processes’ and a ‘political technique of intervention’.”Footnote ¹⁶⁸ German scientific expeditions became sites for the enhancement and technification of organic life. This scientific activity was infused with a German and Brazilian medical utopian imagination that fueled a biopolitical transformation of both German and Brazilian populations. Cinchona-based remedies were designed to strengthen, cure, and protect German bodies as part of the effort to build “civilized” societies. In this context, cinchona decoctions acquired cultural significance as a medical instrument of civilization. As a pharmacological technology, cinchona served to advance interconnected projects of biopolitical modernization and control over human bodies in both Brazil and Germany.Footnote ¹⁶⁹