Medicines to Fight Disease
1556, Kotor (Montenegro)
1 page of a bound volume, manuscript on paper; 32,2 x 20,8 cm
State Archives
Montenegro
DACG IAK SN LV 591
The document is a list of medicinal products by a town doctor in the city of Kotor, on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro. Dated from the year 1556, it is written in Italian and lists 176 medical products that doctors should possess.
Fighting disease has always been one of the great challenges faced by humankind.
The restoration of health involves the administration of specific products, and a plethora of medicines have been used throughout the centuries. Medicines were usually made from common herbs and domestic products, but more exotic and rare ingredients were often used as well. Pharmaceutical products circulated throughout Europe along trade routes and networks that crossed national borders, creating a rich and lively market.
Doctors worked in close collaboration with apothecaries and pharmacists and frequently made their own medicines. The more learned and scientific versions of medicine - inspired by the theories of Hippocrates and Galen and the pharmaceutical ideas of Dioscorides - contained well-developed doctrines on the use and benefits of different medicines and treatments. Traditionally, medical doctors were not the sole prescribers, with popular medicine and non-professional healers also playing a role in this area. However, over time, the medical profession claimed the exclusive right to prescribe medicines, in a slow and sometimes tortuous process, that some would argue is not yet fully complete.