Translating Surgery and Alchemy Between Seventeenth-century Europe and Siam

René Charbonneau (1643–72) traveled to Siam (modern-day Thailand) in 1676 as a lay auxiliary to a band of French missionary priests. It was intended that he would practice his skills as a surgeon to treat missionaries and the indigent poor in the mission hospital established in Ayutthaya. An examination of the few letters that survive in his hand reveal fascinating insights into some of the treatments he used. Details emerge which suggest how far healers like Charbonneau were transformed as they moved into new contexts: how they were able to experiment with new techniques and cures, and how they were often required to reconceptualize their approaches for new audiences. This article explores Charbonneau’s life and career in seventeenth-century Ayutthaya to reassess the “foreign” healers in the history of Thai medicine, and to explore the methodological complexities of reconstructing the medical world of Ayutthaya.