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041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aMartinetti, Thibaud
_eauthor
700 1 0 _a Mansion, Guilhem
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aThe argonaut and the apothecary: Rhetoric and botany in the debate around the nutmeg tree in the Isle de France (1753-1757)
260 _c2023.
500 _a10
520 _aOn 30 September 1748, the Compagnie des Indes (French East India Company) instructed Pierre Poivre (1719-1786) to travel to Manila with the aim of acquiring and acclimatising in the Isle de France the clove and nutmeg trees cultivated by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in its colonies in the Molucca Islands. On 1 October 1755, Pierre Poivre submitted a handwritten description of a young nutmeg tree he had brought back from Timor to the Conseil supérieur de l’Isle de France. Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Fusée-Aublet (1723-1778), the official apothecary of the Compagnie des Indes, contested this report, claiming instead that the so-called nutmeg tree was in fact an areca palm. In this paper, we first identify the social and relational factors that shaped the discourses of this botanical controversy, looking for their origins in the personal papers of Fusée-Aublet and Poivre. Second, we observe the discourses of identification of the nutmeg trees and the will to elaborate the argumentation on a scientific, legal and polemical level. By analysing the conspiracy narrative deployed by Poivre about Fusée-Aublet and other personalities of the Compagnie des Indes, we try to understand the epistemic regime underlying the rhetorical discourse of this botanical controversy.
690 _aCompagnie des Indes (French East India Company)
690 _anutmeg
690 _aIsle de France
690 _atravel account
690 _aJean-Baptiste-Christophe Fusée-Aublet
690 _arhetoric
690 _acolonial botany
690 _aconspiracy theory
690 _ascientific controversy
690 _aPierre Poivre
690 _abotanical determination
690 _anutmeg tree
690 _anutmeg
690 _a(French East India Company)
690 _aIsle de France
690 _atravel account
690 _aJean-Baptiste-Christophe Fusée-Aublet
690 _arhetoric
690 _acolonial botany
690 _aconspiracy theory
690 _aCompagnie des Indes
690 _ascientific controversy
690 _aPierre Poivre
690 _abotanical determination
690 _anutmeg tree
786 0 _nRevue d’histoire des sciences | Volume 76 | 1 | 2023-06-15 | p. 41-83 | 0151-4105
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-d-histoire-des-sciences-2023-1-page-41?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c564196
_d564196