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The “Controversial Cundurango Cure”: Medical professionalization and the global circulation of drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2022

Elisa Sevilla Open the ORCID record for Elisa Sevilla [Opens in a new window]  and
Ana Sevilla Open the ORCID record for Ana Sevilla [Opens in a new window]
Elisa Sevilla*
Affiliation:
Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Ana Sevilla*
Affiliation:
Universidad San Francisco de Quito
*
E-mail: esevillap@usfq.edu.ec
E-mail: anasevillaperez@gmail.com
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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.

Keywords

Cundurangodrug advertisinginternational drug tradeUS Civil Warcancer therapyEcuadorquackerycharlatanhistory of medicinecirculation of knowledgeAfrican American medicinemedical professionalization
Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Charlatans , December 2020 , pp. 423 - 440
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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