Tag Archives: Pharmacopoeia

American ginseng as an herbal emissary influencing Qing-American trade relations

March 19, 2021

Richard Zhang Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Panax quinquefolium, as featured in a book by physician-botanist Jacob Bigelow, late 1810s. Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. On February 22, 1784, the Empress of China set sail from New York Harbor.1 Destined for the eponymous country, the American ship carried thirty tons of a wild root—ginseng. […]

Richard Mead

June 3, 2020

Arpan K Banerjee Solihull, UK   Richard Mead. Mezzotint by R. Houston after A. Ramsay. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Richard Mead was born on 11 August 1673, the eleventh child of Matthew Mead, a preacher and somewhat controversial character of his time.1 Matthew Mead was a scholar and Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, […]