Revalenta arabica

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Advertisement by Barry, Du Barry & Co. for Revalenta arabica from The Courier ( Hobart , Tasmania ) dated November 1, 1856, p. 4. That year the first version of Green Henry appeared .

Revalenta arabica was the name of a tonic that was particularly popular in Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world in the middle of the 19th century. It was ascribed extraordinary healing properties and great value as a diet food.

original

The real Revalenta arabica was the "roots" of Glossostemon bruguieri , a perennial herbaceous plant from the mallow family that can still be found today in the mountainous region east of Baghdad near the Iranian border. The roots were traded in Arabia under the name Arabgossi . In Egypt they are known as Moghat . Infusions of the grated root are traditionally drunk by mothers and their well-wishers shortly after their birth. The plant of origin for the product was unknown for a long time, it was only the German African explorer and botanist Georg Schweinfurth who determined Glossostemon bruguieri as its basis.

It is used to prepare an easily digestible food for frail and health-challenged people. The plant and its use are already mentioned in the Firdous al-Hikmah (“Paradise of Wisdom”) by Ali al-Tabari , a medical encyclopedia from the 9th century. A therapeutic benefit of Glossostemon bruguieri has not yet been proven.

Counterfeit

However, the preparations advertised as miracle cures did not contain this exotic ingredient, rather it was essentially lentil flour , mixed with other ingredients such as bean , vetch or wheat flour . One of the best-known manufacturers of a Revalenta preparation was the London-based company Barry, Du Barry & Co. , whose product was even dedicated to a Revalenta polka.

When the simple components of the miracle cure became known, Revalenta arabica became the subject of satire and humorous contemplation , especially in 19th century Europe as the typical representative of a quackery product marketed with business acumen bordering on deception .

In this way the product found its way into world literature, namely in Gottfried Keller's Der Grüne Heinrich . When Heinrich Lee tries to start a career as a landscape painter , and is cheated out of his picture idea by an enterprising colleague, he morally reigns himself to the thought that swindle and deception - carried out on a large scale - ultimately many good people Provide food and livelihood:

Revalenta arabica is made in many other ways, only with the difference that it is not always harmless bean meal, but with the same puzzling mixture of work and deception, inner hollowness and external success, nonsense and wise business, until the autumn wind Time sweeps everything away and leaves nothing on the Blachfelde but a remnant of property here, a decaying house there, whose heirs no longer know how to say how it came about before, or who do not love to say.

The remedy found users until recently.

Today's equivalent of revalenta arabica as dizziness product per se is the snake oil (snake oil) .

literature

  • Barry, Du Barry and Co .: The natural regenerator of the digestive organs, by a simple, natural… means… London 1847. 20 pp. Numerous other editions.
  • Revalenta arabica. the quintessence of all remedies. In: Archiv der Pharmazie Vol. 117 No. 2 (1851), pp. 247-249
  • Albert Frickhinger: Revalenta arabica des Du Barry, a great fraud. Education for those who want to use the Revalenta; at the same time an open word about secret funds to the German governments and medicinal authorities. Beck, Noerdlingen 1854
  • L. Lohmeier: The Revalenta arabica of Herr Du Barry, its components and their preparation, etc. Magdeburg 1855
  • Korneuburg cattle, nutritional and medicinal powder. Revalenta arabica and other Danish pastries. In: Archives for regional studies in the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg. Vol. 10 (1860), pp. 316-318
  • Ludimar Hermann: Manual of Physiology: Volume 6, Part 1: Physiology of general metabolism and nutrition. C. von Voit . Adamant Media Corporation, 2001, ISBN 0-543-78076-7 , pp. 475 (facsimile reprint of the edition by FCW Vogel, Leipzig 1881).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adolf Engler , Carl Prantl : The natural plant families along with their genera and more important species in particular the useful plants. W. Engelmann, Leipzig 1887. Supplements to III. 6. p. 241
  2. ^ Martin Hinds , El-Said Badawi : A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic . Beirut, 1986, p. 828.
  3. ↑ a b See p. 35f in Max Meyerhof: Alî at-Tabarî's "Paradise of Wisdom", one of the oldest Arabic Compendiums of Medicine. In: Isis. Vol. 16, No. 1 (July 1931), pp. 6-54.
  4. ↑ “Paradise of Wisdom”, Chapter 245
  5. ↑ N. Ibrahim, W. El-Eraky, S. El-Gengaihi, AS Shalaby: Chemical and biological evaluation of proteins and mucilages from roots and seeds of Glossostemon bruguieri Desf. (Moghat). In: Plant Foods for Human Nutrition . Vol. 50 No. 1 (March 1997), pp. 55-61
  6. ^ Edzard Greve: Plus de maladies. Revalenta polka pour piano forte. Dédiée à messieurs Barry du Barry. Brix von Wahlberg, Amsterdam 186?
  7. ↑ Friedrich August Vorteiler: Revalenta Arabica or Who dares, Rittersmann or Knapp, here still to doubt? - Take off your hat! Eisenbergisches Nachrichtensblatt, Volume 1855, September, Issue 71, Sp. 573-574 [1]
  8. ↑ Gottfried Keller: The green Heinrich. In: All works in eight volumes. Aufbau, Berlin 1961. Vol. 3 (first version) p. 702 ff. Vol. 4 (second version) p. 634 ff
  9. ↑ Der Grüne Heinrich [Second Version] Berlin 1961 p. 637
  10. ↑ See G. Hegi: Vicia faba L., field bean, horse bean, broad bean. In: Illustrated flora of Central Europe. 2nd edition, Vol. IV / 3. Paul Parey Verlag, Berlin 1964. pp. 1556–1562.