Exotic Drugs and English Medicine: England's Drug Trade, c. 1550-c. 1800
- 22 July 2011
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Social History of Medicine
- Vol. 25 (1), 20-46
- https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr055
Abstract
What effect did the dramatic expansion in long distance trade in the early modern period have on healthcare in England? This article presents new evidence on the scale, origins and content of English imports of medical drugs between 1567 and 1774. It shows that the volume of imported medical drugs exploded in the seventeenth century, and continued growing more gradually over the eighteenth century. The variety of imported drugs changed more slowly. Much was re-exported, but estimates of dosages suggest that some common drugs (for example, senna, Jesuits' Bark) were available to the majority of the population in the eighteenth century. English demand for foreign drugs provides further evidence for a radical expansion in medical consumption in the seventeenth century. It also suggests that much of this new demand was met by purchasing drugs rather than buying services.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Did Vasco da Gama matter for European markets?1The Economic History Review, 2009
- Producing and using the Historical Relation of Ceylon: Robert Knox, the East India Company and the Royal SocietyThe British Journal for the History of Science, 2009
- ‘Profits sprout like tropical plants’: a fresh look at what went wrong with the Eurasian spice tradec. 1550–1800Journal of Global History, 2008
- Making Medicines in the Early Modern HouseholdThe SHAFR Guide Online, 2008
- Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living: Thinking about Globalization in the Early Modern WorldJournal of World History, 2007
- Consumption, retailing, and medicine in early‐modern LondonThe Economic History Review, 2007
- The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World WarExplorations in Economic History, 2001
- New World materia medica in Spanish renaissance medicine: From scholarly reception to practical impactMedical History, 2001
- Prices and the Value of English Exports in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from the North American Colonial TradeThe Economic History Review, 1995
- London and the colonial consumer in the late seventeenth centuryThe Economic History Review, 1994