Medicine and the Market in England and Its Colonies, C. 1450- C. 1850

Illustration 11.1 Robert Cruickshank, 'Waterworks in Danger, or a Grand Cut at the MP for Westminster', copyright Trustees of the British Museum Illustration 12.1 'Fallacy of the Organic Theory', reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Library, London Illustration 12.2 'Extraordinary Effects of Morrisons Vegetable Pills', reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Library, London viii List of Tables, Figures and Illustrations Preface This collection originated in a conversation between the two editors a number of years ago. It began to take shape at a workshop held at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London, in January 2005. We are grateful to all those who took part in what was a particularly fruitful occasion, and especially to Hal Cook who opened proceedings and to Colin Jones, Sandra Cavallo, Craig Muldrew and Willem de Blécourt who acted as respondents to the papers. We wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Centre and the Wellcome Trust, which made the workshop possible. The workshop took place just after the Centre had moved buildings and we are therefore especially grateful to Sally Bragg for her truly heroic work in organizing the event amid the chaos of the move. The chapter one benefited greatly from discussions both at that meeting and at a graduate workshop at the Centre. The editors would also like to acknowledge how much they individually or collectively learned from discussions on these themes with Hal Cook, Natasha Glaisyer, Front Matter....Pages i-xiii The Medical Marketplace....Pages 1-23 Medical Economies in Fifteenth-Century England....Pages 24-46 Competition and Cooperation in the Early Modern Medical Economy....Pages 47-68 The Rural Medical Marketplace in Southern England c. 1570–1720....Pages 69-87 Magic, Alchemy and the Medical Economy in Early Modern England: The Case of Robert Fludd’s Magnetical Medicine....Pages 88-107 The Marketplace of Print....Pages 108-132 Recipe Collections and the Currency of Medical Knowledge in the Early Modern ‘Medical Marketplace’....Pages 133-152 Midwifery in the ‘Medical Marketplace’....Pages 153-174 Illness in the ‘Social Credit’ and ‘Money’ Economies of Eighteenth-Century New England....Pages 175-195 Medical Marketplaces beyond the West: Bazaar Medicine, Trade and the English Establishment in Eighteenth-Century India....Pages 196-215 Monopoly, Markets and Public Health: Pollution and Commerce in the History of London Water 1780–1830....Pages 216-237 Medicine, Quackery and the Free Market: The ‘War’ against Morison’s Pills and the Construction of the Medical Profession, c. 1830–c. 1850....Pages 238-261 Back Matter....Pages 262-269 What was the medical marketplace? What is a 'medical marketplace'? This book provides the first critical examination of medicine and the market in pre-modern England, colonial North America and British India. Chapters cover the most important themes in the social history of medicine from the fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, addressing healthcare in town and country, among rich and poor, women and men, and examining both patients and practitioners. Drawing on recent developments in the history of exchange, they offer new understandings of the ways in which diverse aspects of healthcare operated and changed in this period of social and economic transformation. Each chapter offers significant new interpretation of its field based upon a critical examination of the applicability of the medical marketplace model and presents substantial new research in an accessible style What was the medical marketplace? This book provides the first critical examination of medicine and the market in pre-modern England, colonial North America and British India. Chapters explore the most important themes in the social history of medicine and offer a fresh understanding of healthcare in this time of social and economic transformation.