Medicine in 18th-19th-Century Georgia

Abstract

The paper discusses Georgian and foreign sources on European Catholic missionaries’ medical practices in Georgia, and the pressures they faced under the colonial rule of the Russian Empire. It analyzes various lexicographical material generated by those Catholic missionaries, among them the Botanical Italian-Georgian Dictionary (SN4742), the Italian-Georgian Dictionary (“Goruli”-QN 500) and Emanuele da Iglesias’ Italian-Georgian Dictionary (AC28), which bring together Georgian equivalents of medicinal and botanical terms. It is shown that Catholic missionaries “transferred” the traditional Georgian healing knowledge preserved in karabadins (traditional medical handbooks) into the European lexicographical tradition, thereby helping to introduce it to the Western world. The issues are examined through the lens of historical methodology and global history, with particular attention to the circulation of knowledge. The paper also draws on Russian archival documents from 1837 (Fund 16, Case N 5404), which include official police reports on the surveillance and persecution of traditional healers. The sources show that, in Georgia, the Russian Government initially exerted pressure on educated, formally trained Georgian physicians, and, beginning in 1837, moved on to suppress folk medicine as well.