Patent Medicines Industry in Georgian England

Alan Mackintosh is Research Fellow in the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, UK. He is a former Consultant Cardiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, and Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and of the European Society of Cardiology.

• 1. Introduction.-  2. The Status of Patent Medicines.- 3. Constructing the Industry.-  4. Connecting the Country.-  5. Supplying the Consumer.-  6. Persuading the Poorly.- 7. Utilising the Imagination as Therapy.- 8. Harnessing the Potency of Print.- 9. The Legacy of the Patent Medicines Industry.

“Mackintosh offers us a very interesting bottom-up approach to the history of medicines that provides a model for those with the patience and commitment to pull together the diverse sources of empirical data that are available in archives around the world. … Mackintosh has provided invaluable information about the reality of the medicines business in eighteenth-century Britain.” (Jonathan Simon, Metascience, July 29, 2020)“This is an interesting book that explores uncharted waters or, more exactly, looks differently at waters that had previously been analyzed, but in a superficial way. It fills a gap in the history of pharmacy and medicines, between the continuity of ancient and medieval tradition that slowly faded up to the late 16th century and the development of modern chemistry and the industrial revolution, leading to the creation of the pharmaceutical industry.” (Alain Touwaide, Doody's Book Reviews, April, 2018)