Pharmaceutical Hunger And Medicinal Plants: Mobilization Of The Botanists During The World War I
FEDOTOVA ANASTASIA A.
S.I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА: MEDICINAL PLANTS, RUSSIAN BOTANISTS, PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY, WORD WAR I
АННОТАЦИЯ:
In my paper I will describe the involvement of Russian botanists in the collection and cultivation of medicinal plants as part of the war effort. In the autumn of 1914, when cut off from foreign suppliers, Russia was quickly faced with the situation of “pharmaceutical hunger”. In 1915-1917, with advice or/ and leadership of botanists, special meetings were organized, botanical trips were made, manuals and reference books were published, experimental stations and fields were created, lectures were read and so on. As a result of all these actions taken by the governmental and public organizations, high prices and steady demand were established. It made an enabling environment for the cultivation and collection of officinal plants. The structures created during WWI not only survived the war and revolutionary years but developed into large institutions. Many of those botanists who began to study medicinal plants during WWI successfully continued their work in the Soviet times.
