Under the motto "Wine and Knowledge", the Gutenberg Society and the Gutenberg Foundation once again cordially invite you to the evening lecture series "Friends of Gutenberg – Jour Fixe" followed by a wine tasting at the Kulturei Mainz.
Topic: Jesuits versus Galenists – bitter book dispute about the usefulness of fever bark against malaria in the 17th century
Speaker: Dr. Michael Schulte
Mainz and malaria? In the Rhenish city there is no danger of contracting the well-known tropical disease. Nevertheless, there is an exciting connection between the two, because even before Corona, Mainz played a special role in the fight against a disease:
For many centuries, Europe was firmly in the grip of swamp or changeling fever. Not only in the Mediterranean countries, but also in the marshlands and river plains of northern Europe, malaria claimed numerous victims. In the middle of the 17th century, the first effective therapy was available: the bark of the fever tree, which grows in South America and was first brought to Rome by the Jesuit missionary networks and spread from there. However, this dissemination was accompanied by great controversy, as the proponents of the new therapy and the followers of Galen's humoral pathological doctrine warred with each other in polemical writings. Well documented by the books of the 17th century, scientific, political and theological arguments can be traced in this dispute. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that cinchona bark, as it was now called, became established in the pharmacopoeias of European countries and remained the malaria therapy of choice until well into the 20th century. Mainz and its immediate surroundings were of particular importance for the supply of the active ingredient quinine.
Dr. Michael Schulte is a pharmacist and works at Merck, the oldest chemical-pharmaceutical company in the world, where he develops production processes for complex drugs. In the course of the Corona pandemic, he became aware of interesting documents on the history of quinine and has processed them for the lecture and put them into a new context.
Date: 28.04.2022
Time: 6 pm
Location: Kulturei (Citadel Mainz)
Host: International Gutenberg Society and Gutenberg Foundation
Admission is free, but registration is requested at info@gutenberg-gesellschaft.de or by telephone on 06131-226420.