James Douglas and the History of Chocolate

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.