James Douglas and the History of Chocolate

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5944/epos.40.2024.42292

Abstract

James Douglas, a prominent Scottish physician, is renowned for his anatomical discoveries, particularly the pouch of Douglas. Beyond anatomy, Douglas made significant contributions to botany, including a monograph on the history of chocolate, now housed in the Glasgow University Library. His interest in chocolate, alongside other plants, reflects his broad scientific curiosity. Manuscript Hunter 560, meticulously detailed and hitherto unexplored, offers valuable insights into the cultural and scientific perspectives on chocolate in the eighteenth century. The aim of this article is, therefore, to present the contents of James Douglas’s The History of Chocolate and to vindicate his figure as a botanist and multifaceted man in the field of the eighteenth-century science.

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Author Biography

Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas, Universidad de Alcalá

Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas holds a B.A. Degree and a PhD in English Philology from the University Complutense of Madrid. She is currently a Professor at the University of Alcalá, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in English language and linguistics. Her research interests include history of the English language, particularly lexicology and semantics, as well as manuscript studies. She has published articles in specialized journals, books, and book chapters with international publishers on these topics. In the field of textual studies, she has worked over the past decades on various volumes housed in British universities, thanks to research stays at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Library of the University of Glasgow. Some of her publications focus on different manuscripts from the latter, including works from both the Hunter Collection and the Ferguson Collection.

References

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Published

2024-12-18

How to Cite

de la Cruz Cabanillas, I. (2024). James Douglas and the History of Chocolate. Epos : Revista de filología, (40), 53–73. https://doi.org/10.5944/epos.40.2024.42292

Issue

No. 40 (2024): Epos: Revista de filología

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Articles

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Copyright (c) 2024 Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas

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