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The cultural pharmacology of chocolate

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Nov, 2004 by Tim Batchelder

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Nicolas de Blegny notes that taken with vanilla syrup in the evening, chocolate suspends rheumatoids and inflammation of the lungs (Blegny 1687: 282-285). In his The Natural History of Chocolate, D. de Quelus described a "councilor about a hundred years old, who, for 30 years past, lived on nothing but chocolate and biscuit, yet was so vigorous and nimble, that at fourscore and five, he could get on horseback without stirrups." He also added that chocolate was used as a vehicle for millipedes, earthworms, vipers, and eels and chocolate oil works to ease pain and treat the skin (Quelus 1719:77-78).

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The famous naturalist Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) noted that chocolate helped wasting brought on by lung and muscle diseases, hypochondria and hemorrhoids and worked as an aphrodisiac (von Linne 1741). Alexander Peter Buchan suggested that women in labor should be served chocolate as well as to prevent fainting brought on by blood loss (Buchan 1792:224). Antonio Lavedan cautioned against chocolate drinking in the afternoon and recommended it for tuberculosis and consumption by replacing "the loss of nutrient balsams that have stolen the consumptive warmth" (Lavedan 1796:223). Anthelme Brillat-Savarin noted that chocolate is an antidote to the inconveniences ascribed to coffee and is "suitable to those who have much brain work to do, such as clergymen and lawyers, and especially for travelers" and urged people to drink a cup after breakfast, as this facilitated digestion as well as chocolate mixed with ground amber dust as a remedy for hangover, when the "faculties are temporarily dulled, and during periods of tormented thinking." He also suggested that people with "delicate nerves" mix it with orange flower water (Brillat-Savarin 1825:100). Auguste Saint-Arroman noted that ginger, pimento, cloves, Spanish arachis or earth pistachio--a plant known in English as the peanut (Saint-Arroman 1846:82) were all added. Auguste Debay like so many other European writers, recommended the addition of sugar to chocolate, but he also recommended addition of ground lichen, quinine extract, and cinnamon to create a vermifuge and treatment for syphilis (Debay 1864:91). Others emphasized that chocolate was capable of "repairing the losses due to work, pleasures, and staying up late at night" (Panades y Poblet 1878: 192). According to Pedro Felipe Monlau, to create purgatives, ground cacao was combined with Convolvulus scammonia (scammony) and Convolvulus jalapa (jalapa). Antihemorrhoid suppositories were prepared using cacao butter, cocaine hydrochlorate and ergot and a "calming suppository" (supositorio calmante) was made of cacao butter, belladonna extract and laudanum (Monlau 1881:202-203). Cacao butter was often used to prepare suppositories that contained belladonna or ergot. Gustavo Reboles y Campos noted in a work he translated, that to force-feed patients "it is preferable to mix [the medicine] with chocolate or liqueurs" (Reboles y Campos 1888: 183). Mariano Villanueva y Francesconi suggested that "people suffering from cancerous diseases eat wild game and fowl, like partridge, duck, pheasant, woodcock, avoid coffee and tea and use chocolate instead, and avoid acids and alcoholic beverages." When mixed with ground melon/pumpkin seeds, ground almonds, milk of sweet almonds, chocolate was used as an emulsion to counter diarrhea (Villanueva y Francesconi 1890: 333). Cacao butter was frequently used in ointments, along with pig lard, tallow, oil of sweet almonds, olive oil, and lanolin. Juan Bardina recommended that an ointment prepared from cacao butter be applied to the breasts of nursing women who developed sores and cautioned that candy bars were often wrapped in silvered paper, which was toxic (Bardina 1905; 307). Other writers cautioned against the use of chocolate as a candy and by nervous or excitable people (Varios Profesores 1912: 4).

Health Care Industry

The cultural pharmacology of chocolate

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Nov, 2004 by Tim Batchelder

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