From Physick to Pharmacology

"From Physick to Pharmacology: Five Centuries of Drug Retailing" examines the important, but neglected history of the distribution and sale of medicinal drugs in England. The social history of early medicine and the evolution of British retailing are areas attracting considerable attention from academics, but until know little work has been done either by medical or business historians on the actual retailing of drugs. This book merges the two themes by examining the growth in the retailing of medicinal drugs from the sixteenth into the twenty-first centuries. Beginning with sixteenth and seventeenth century Huguenot apothecaries, the book goes on to examine the expansion of distribution networks and retail outlets that emerged to sell new, branded, and pre-packaged proprietary drugs. Later chapters examine other ways in which medicines were sold in the eighteenth century, with a focus on itinerant traders; followed by pieces on the rise of chemists and druggists in the nineteenth-century and on twentieth century community pharmacists. The final topic covers the marketing and consumption of prescription drugs to the present day.