Local Ecological Knowledge and folk medicine in historical Esthonia, Livonia, Courland and Galicia, 1805-1905

Background: Historical ethnobotanical data can provide valuable information about past human-nature relationships as well as serve as a basis for diachronic analysis. This thesis aims to document medicinal plant uses in the 19th century mentioned in German-language sources in the historical regions of Esthonia, Livonia, Courland and Galicia to analyse the gathered data in regard to plant families and medicinal use categories and finally to qualitatively compare the results with various studies from the study area and surrounding regions with recently acquired data as well as historical data.

Methods: Data was mainly obtained by systematic manual search in various relevant historical German-language works focused on the medicinal use of plants. Data about plant and non-plant constituents, their usage, the mode of administration, used plant parts and their German and local names was extracted and collected into a database in the form of Use Reports.