Serbian Historical Sources Enrich MP4V VM Data

From August 15 to September 25, young researcher Darija Dišić analysed historical textbooks relevant to traditional medicinal plant uses in Serbia for veterinary medicine. Grantee identified plant species, animal species, treatments and filled out Excel forms with this information.

Woman standing in front of a display case with books, holding a book in her hand.

Darija at the library of Department of Phamacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade with the book she worked on, ‘The real national teacher’ written by Pelagić from 1941. (Photo: Darija Dišić, University of Belgrade)

Two women are standing in front of a display case with books, each holding a book in their hands.

Darija and Mirjana at the library of Department of Pharmacognosy with books they worked on written by Pelagić and Tucakov. (Photo: Darija Dišić, University of Belgrade)

During the VM initiative, young researcher Master of Pharmacy Darija Dišić, PhD student under the supervision of Dr Mirjana Marčetić, Associate Professor, both from the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Pharmacy, Serbia, engaged in a comprehensive programme of archival research, data collection and digital data management. Darija began the project by identifying and accessing historical veterinary texts provided by the Faculty of Pharmacy. She extracted key information from the texts, including plant names (common and Latin), parts used, methods of preparation, animal species treated and ailments addressed. In addition to the initial data collection at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Darija expanded her research by visiting the National Library of Serbia, where she identified and accessed additional historical veterinary books, further enriching the dataset with diverse sources. She successfully entered a total of 163 lines of data from seven books into the database. These books date from 1929 to 1971. Over 60 plant species are mentioned and discussed.