Dangerous Drugs
Title
Dangerous Drugs
Subtitle
The Self-Presentation of the Merchant-Poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620-1695)
Price
€ 153,00 excl. VAT
ISBN
9789462982543
Format
Hardback
Number of pages
456
Language
English
Publication date
Dimensions
17 x 24 cm
Also available as
eBook PDF - € 152,99
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements
Part I: Introduction
1. Theory and reception
Part II: Medicinal and sacred drugs
2. The sober druggist
3. Drugs in the Wunderkammer
4. Drugs as remedies
5. Drugs as material and linguistic cosmetics
6. Drugs as explosives
7. Drugs as sacred offerings
8. Drugs as intoxicants
Part III: Divine Blood for Sale
9. The human body as a drug
10. Conclusion
Appendix I
Appendix II
Bibliography
Index

Reviews and Features

"Focusing on the fascinating life and strategies of self-presentation of one singular druggist, Joannes Six van Chandelier, this engaging and erudite book sheds new light on seventeenth-century Dutch culture and pharmacology. Spaans analyzes expertly how Six transformed the potentially prosaic materials of global trade into compelling poetic art."
- Michael Schoenfeldt, University of Michigan

"By showing how Six's work as a druggist helped to shape his experience of the world, Spaans is able to weave together his interests and poetry, mind and body, head and hand. For historians of early modern medicine and empire the work will be as important as for scholars of Dutch culture and literature. It is an impressive achievement."
- Harold J. Cook, Brown University

Ronny Spaans

Dangerous Drugs

The Self-Presentation of the Merchant-Poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620-1695)

In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic was the centre of the world trade in exotic drugs and spices. They were sought after both as medicines, and as luxury objects for the bourgeois class, giving rise to a medical and moral anxiety in the Republic. This ambivalent view on exotic drugs is the theme of the poetry of Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620-1695). Six, who himself ran the drug shop ‘The Gilded Unicorn’ in Amsterdam, addresses a number of exotic medicines in his poems, such as musk, incense, the miracle drug theriac, Egyptian mumia, and even the blood of Charles I of England. In Dangerous Drugs, these texts are studied for the first time. The study shows how Six, through a process of self-presentation as a sober and restrained merchant, but also as a penitent sinner, thirsting for God’s grace, links early modern drug abuse to different desires, such as lust, avarice, pride and curiosity. The book shows also how an early modern debate on exotic drugs contributed to an important shift in early modern natural science, from a drug lore based on mythical and fabulous concepts, to a botany based on observation and systematic examination.
Author

Ronny Spaans

Dr. Ronny Spaans is Associate Professor in Nordic Literature at Nord University. He also teaches Dutch at the University of Oslo. He obtained his PhD from the University of Oslo on a thesis on the poetry of Joannes Six van Chandelier (2015).