A Singular Perspective on Certain Pharmaceutical Practices in Early 18th-century Italy: the Travel Accounts of Jean-Baptiste Labat

Abstract

This article explores Jean-Baptiste Labat’s distinctive perspective on pharmaceutical and therapeutic practices in early 18th-century Italy. Drawing upon Labat’s detailed travel accounts, the authors examine his critical observations of medical and therapeutic customs, highlighting his encounters with unusual remedies rooted in local traditions. Attention is given to Labat’s descriptions of tarantism and the tarantella, a phenomenon prevalent in southern Italy, where music and pharmacological remedies were employed to treat symptoms following the bite of the Lycosa tarantula spider. The study also highlights Labat’s account of an unconventional treatment for severe skin diseases involving the use of snakes and opium-induced anesthesia. By situating Labat’s writings within the broader framework of contemporary travel literature and medical anthropology, this study sheds light on the cultural and scientific milieu of the Italian peninsula during Labat’s journeys.