Rattlesnake Root: Crossed Histories in Colonial North American Medicine (18th Century)

Abstract

This text explores two life paths that crossed under the sign of rattlesnake root, a native plant commonly used by the Seneca in Virginia but only discovered and applied in European-origin medicine in the second half of the 18th century. John Tennent and João de Sequeira shared their European roots, the influence of boerhaavian medicine on their medicalpractice and the enthusiasm for the therapeutic properties of rattlesnake root. Tennent, on settling in Virginia, learnt how the Seneca used this root to cure rattlesnake bites and used it to treat respiratory diseases, particularly pleurisy and pneumonia; amazed with the good results, he disseminated his discovery in America and Europe, although generating some controversy in the medical community. Sequeira, a doctor with family origins in Brazil and a childhood marked by inquisitorial harassment, studied medicine in Leiden under the influence of the boerhaavian school; he ended up moving to Williamsburg, where he began to use rattlesnake root as an
essential element in his daily medical practice, as he made
clear in his notes on the diseases prevalent in Virginia. The
focus on the properties of this plant in the treatment of a
variety of pathologies is indicative of the valorization of indigenous medicine and the search for innovative therapeutic treatments at the time.