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List of finished third-party funded projects

DFG-GRK 1876: Early Concepts of Humans and Nature: Universal, Specific, Interchanged

Research Training Group at the University of Mainz with the participation of the departments of Pre- and Early History (Pleistocene Archaeology), Egyptology, Ancient Near Eastern Philology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Classical Philology, Classical Archaeology, Medieval Studies and Byzantine Studies.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Term: 2013 to 2022 (DFG), 2022 to 2023 (JGU Mainz)
Initiator and speaker 2013 to 2020: Tanja Pommerening; from 2021 member of the circle of sponsors

External link to the project homepage of University of Mainz with information about the subprojects

Publication projects

Living Bodies, Dead Bodies and the Cosmos: Culturally Specific and Universal Concepts, edited by Chiara Ferella, Tanja Pommerening and Ulrike Steinert, Mohr Siebeck, ASK.

„Lebendig oder tot, gesund oder krank. Der menschliche Körper in vormodernen Kulturen“, ed. by Tanja Pommerening und Jochen Althoff, WBG, Sonderband in der Reihe „Antike Welt“
ArIS: Through the artefact to the infra structura - the drug prescription as access to the design of social infrastructure

Interdisciplinary project by scientists from the universities of RWTH Aachen, Philipps-Universität Marburg and WWU Münster as well as the German Pharmacy Museum in Heidelberg.

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Project leader, Marburg: Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich
Employees:
Dr Kerstin Stowasser (née Grothusheitkamp),
Dr Stefan Alexandru (until 1.7.2019)

Term: 1.9.2018 to 31.8.2022

Link to the homepage of the project at University of Münster (external link)
Preparation of the third supplementary volume of the German Pharmacist Biography (Deutsche Apotheker-Biographie)

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Applicant: Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich
Employee: Dr Peter Hartwig Graepel
Term: 2015–2020

Description of the project
The task of the project is to compile a third supplementary volume to the German Pharmacists' Biography, which so far consists of four volumes, and to present it ready for printing. Based on extensive preliminary work, around 600 biographies of pharmacists from the German cultural sphere will be processed, most of whom lived in the 20th century, around 200 in the long 19th century and around 60 in the period from the 16th to the 18th century. In addition to the dates of birth and death and important stages of life, each biography contains information on the pharmacist's own scientific work, publishing activities and a short bibliography of the most important biographical works on the pharmacist, as well as an acknowledgement of their life's work. The aim of the project is to increase the proportion of female pharmacists, industrial pharmacists, pharmacists who have made a name for themselves in professional politics and also those from the GDR compared to previous volumes. The volume will also contain corrections to information in the previous volumes based on new research and an index of names for all five volumes. The third supplementary volume compiled as part of the project is intended to continue a unique professional and discipline-orientated biographical reference work, which is now one of the most important standard works and is not only used by historians of pharmacy, medicine and the natural sciences.

Results of the project
(English translation in progress)

The task of the DFG project was to compile a third supplementary volume of the biographical reference work "Deutsche Apotheker-Biographie", which had already been published with two original volumes and two supplementary volumes up to 1997. This has been available in print since May 2021 and, due to its size, has been published in two parts with over 700 pages. The volume contains 541 biographies of pharmacists who worked in German-speaking countries from the early modern period to the 20th century. They were largely compiled by the project members, the applicant and the other editor. In addition, there are also biographies compiled by students under the supervision of the project team member and the project leader, as well as those of a large number of other authors. All these texts have been checked against the sources, revised and their length adapted to the overall concept. In line with the aim of increasing the proportion of female pharmacists, biographies of 32 female pharmacists were included. The focus is on biographies of pharmacists who died after the publication of the second supplementary volume (1997). Among them are many university lecturers as well as industrial and professional pharmacists who worked in particular in the FRG and GDR. The majority are academically active pharmacists who taught as university lecturers in pharmaceutical, other natural science and medical subjects. Their biographies offer insights into the scientific network. At the same time, the biographies provide a variety of suggestions for the history of science, medicine, social, cultural and scientific history. Not least thanks to the complete index, the volumes are an indispensable biographical reference work that no large library should be without.

Link to further information about the project, including publications (external link)
Biography of the Nobel laureate in medicine Emil von Behring (1854–1917)

Project leader: Dr Ulrike Enke

Term II: 1/2020–6/2022 (funded by the von-Behring-Röntgen-Stiftung)
Term I: 11/2014–9/2019 (funded by the DFG)

Link to the publication on the publisher's website (external link)
Plants in cancer therapy from the 18th to 19th century, taking into account their use in homeopathy

Research stipend, funded by the Waltraud Hülshorst Foundation

Applicant: Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich
Awardee: Kerstin Stowasser (née Grothusheitkamp)
Term: 2014–2019
Medicinal plants of traditional Arabic medicine as potential suppliers of active ingredients

Funded by the Laudanum Institute of Phytopharmaceutical Sciences (ALIPS) AG, Switzerland

Applicants:
Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich,
Prof Dr Sabine Anagnostou

Term: 2010–2013
Cataloguing, digitisation and provision of Emil von Behring's estate on the Internet

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Applicant: Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich
Employee: Dr Kornelia Grundmann
Term: 8/2009–6/2013

Description of the project
As part of the project "Cataloguing, Digitisation and Provision of Emil von Behring's estate on the Internet", important sources on the history of German science, medicine, pharmacy and business are to be made accessible to the public under convenient research conditions. The project is being realised on the basis of the Allegro database HANS. With its help, the materials were catalogued formally and in terms of content (i.e. expanded to include registers) according to the rules for indexing estates and autographs (RNA). The online presentation, which went online on 3 May 2012, offers users contextualised access to the estate by means of index, free text and systematic searches as well as numerous references. The central contents of the estate (correspondence, research diaries, life documents) are thus available as a service for research on the Internet. At the same time, the project also serves to preserve the collection by rehousing the materials in acid-proof folders. Work has begun on cataloguing the form and content of Behring's private library. In addition to the formal cataloguing of the books, the TPRO Thesaurus of Provenance Terms is also being used to carry out provenance cataloguing with the aim of identifying the specific features of the books. The numerous marginalia in particular prove to be a treasure trove for the evaluation of Behring's scientific and private plans and thoughts. However, due to the sometimes difficult transcription and the necessary research, the processing of the handwritten notes requires much more time than assumed and calculated in the first follow-up application.

Results of the project
As part of the DFG-funded project "Cataloguing, Digitisation and Provision of Emil von Behring's estate on the Internet", important sources on the history of German science, medicine, pharmacy and business were made accessible to the public under convenient research conditions. The project was realised on the basis of the Allegro database HANS. The materials were catalogued formally and in terms of content (i.e. extended by registers) according to the rules for cataloguing estates and autographs (RNA) and transferred to acid-proof folders for preservation. The online presentation of the digital copies and metadata of all documents, which was launched on 3 May 2012 offers users contextualised access to the estate by means of index, free text and systematic searches as well as numerous references (link below). The central contents (correspondence, research diaries, life documents as well as Behring's work correspondence up to his death in 1917 and his scientific bibliography) are thus available as a service for research and are now to be used for a biography planned by the project staff according to new scientific standards. The formal indexing and digitisation of Behring's private library with various interesting annotations in his own hand has been completed, but only part of the content could be indexed within the time frame of the project. The marginalia proved to be a particularly worthwhile source for Behring's scientific and private thoughts, so that this missing part of the project is to be completed in any case. Precise knowledge of the material is an excellent prerequisite for compiling a biography of Behring according to new standards of scientific history.

Link to further information about the Behring archive, now hosted by the archive of the University of Marburg (German only)

Link to the project page by the German Research Foundation, containing project related publications (external link)
Pharmacies of religious orders in Central Europe and in the countries of Spanish America: centres of scientific exchange - centres of international drug transfer (16.-18. century)

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Applicant: PD Dr Sabine Anagnostou
Term: 2001–2005

Description of the project
The research project Religious Pharmacies in Central Europe and the Countries of Spanish America as Sites of Remedy and Knowledge Transfer is international and interdisciplinary; its focus is on the history of pharmacy. It will examine which remedies, together with the knowledge of their medical application, were disseminated through the pharmacies of the science-orientated Society of Jesus in Central Europe and Spanish America - from the foundation of the order in 1540 until its abolition in 1773 - through the scientific and pharmaceutical activities of the Jesuits. It will be worked out in detail which non-European drugs, especially from the former missions of Spanish America, were introduced to Europe via these order pharmacies, disseminated together with the knowledge of their use and integrated into European medicine (medicine, pharmacy); how, conversely, drugs from the traditional European materia medica were brought to the then so-called New World by means of the pharmaceutical activities of Jesuits, and what influence the exchange of drugs and knowledge had on the development of the respective materia medica up to the present day. Special attention will be paid to the application and preservation of ethnic cultural assets (ethnomedicine, ethnopharmacy, ethnobotany). At the same time, the importance of Jesuit pharmacies for the medical-pharmaceutical care of the respective population will be shown.

Link to the project's page at the German Research Foundation (external link)
Edition of the correspondence of the pharmacist and professor Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff (1770-1837)

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Applicant: Prof Dr Christoph Friedrich
Term: 1995–2008

Projektbeschreibung
The task of the project is to transcribe the correspondence of the pharmacist and professor Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff (1770-1837) with 250 pharmacists, naturalists, physicians and other persons, which is unique in the history of pharmacy in terms of quantity alone with around 1500 letters, and to prepare it for printing, including the layout. In accordance with modern scientific requirements for an edition of letters, it is urgently necessary to annotate letters from the 18th and 19th centuries. This applies to biographical information on the letter writers and recipients as well as other persons mentioned in the letters. Technical terms - especially those no longer in use today -, weights and measures must be explained and the literature mentioned in the letters must be deciphered bibliographically. The indexes already available in the volumes of Acta historica Leopoldina No. 18 that have already been printed or are ready for printing must be supplemented and continued.

Results of the project
The task of the project was to transcribe the correspondence of the pharmacist and professor Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff (1770-1837) with more than 250 pharmacists, naturalists, physicians and other persons, which is unique in the history of pharmacy in terms of quantity alone, and to prepare it for printing, including the layout, as well as to produce a letter edition from the 18th/19th century in accordance with modern scientific requirements. This concerned biographical information on the letter writers and recipients as well as on other persons mentioned in the letters. Technical apparatus, technical terms - especially those no longer in use today - weights and measures had to be explained and the literature mentioned in the letters had to be deciphered bibliographically. In addition, the cross-connections and references between the correspondents were elucidated. The personal indexes already available in the volumes of the series Acta Historica Leopoldina No. 18, which have already been printed or are available for printing, had to be supplemented and continued. The last volume of the individual correspondence was given a complete subject index as well as a complete list of the sources and literature used. A total of 8 volumes with approx. 2300 duck pages were completed. Further research based on the edition material, such as lectures, publications in scientific journals, theses or dissertations, was encouraged. The edition was presented in lectures and publications and the letters are used as a source for various questions relating to the history of pharmacy and science. New insights have been gained into the biographies of numerous pharmacists, and the histories of discoveries and the creation of scientific works have been reconstructed in detail. The correspondence also sheds light on scientific communication at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, including with foreign colleagues. Finally, it also represents a unique socio-historical source and offers very personal insights into the lives and mindsets of different social classes in the "Goethe era". The latest results and the current state of Trommsdorff research have been presented on a website, which also contains registers of the volumes already published.

Link to the project's page at the German Research Foundation (external link)

_{State of information: September 2024}

_{Translated with DeepL.com (free version)}