The “Controversial Cundurango Cure”

Medical professionalization and the global circulation of drugs

Bibliographic Data

ID14671069
AuthorsElisa Sevilla (0000-0001-7268-8973, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, corresponding author), Almudena Sevilla (0000-0003-0075-3291, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume33
Issue4
Pages423-440
Publication date2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889721000144
PMID35086592
OpenAlexW4210303112
LanguageEN
References cited13

Argument This article examines the medical and political discussions regarding a controversial medicinal bark from Ecuador – cundurango – that was actively sponsored by the Ecuadorian government as a new botanical cure for cancer in the late nineteenth century United States and elsewhere. The article focuses on the commercial and diplomatic interests behind the public discussion and advertising techniques of this drug. It argues that diverse elements – including the struggle for positioning scientific societies and the disapproval of the capacities of Ecuadorian doctors, US abolitionist history, regional and local political struggles – played a role in the quackery accusations against cundurango and its promoters. The development and international trade of this remedy offer interesting insights into the global history of drugs, particularly how medical knowledge was challenged during a period when scientific medicine was struggling for hegemony. It explores how newspapers expanded “the public interest” in a possible cancer cure

Newspaper · Politics · Professionalization · Quackery · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History of Medicine and Tropical Health · History of Science and Natural History