‘From Elephant’s Foot … to Cortisone’: Boots Pure Drug Company and Dioscorea Sylvatica in South Africa, c. 1950–1963

Abstract

In 1949 scientists in the United States announced the dramatic effects of a new drug, cortisone. They found that cortisone could be made cheaply from diosgenin, extracted from Mexican wild yam species, and began a global search for supplementary plants. By the early 1950s, South African botanists had identified the yam Dioscorea sylvatica, elephant’s foot, as promising. Boots, a major British pharmaceutical company, was keen to develop a source of diosgenin to manufacture corticosteroid medicines and started a factory in Johannesburg in 1955 to process D. sylvatica. Systematic extraction began in the eastern Transvaal and Natal. Our article focuses first on the global pharmaceutical context, as well as the identification and extraction of this plant. Second, we examine the conflicts that developed around harvesting, especially in Natal. Natal Parks Boards officers were uneasy about mass exploitation of a wild plant and attempted to enforce strict conditions. By 1960, they succeeded in terminating permits and Boots ceased production of South African diosgenin. This was a significant case for a fledgling provincial conservation authority. Third, we explore briefly issues of bioprospecting: the scientific exploitation of plant properties and whether this was a case of direct appropriation of local or indigenous knowledge.