Medicine and its markets in early modern England

This paper explores some of the profound changes that occurred in health care between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries in England. My main concern is trying to understand when and why people began turning to medical providers who operated commercially to help maintain and recover their health. To that end, I will present evidence from several different areas in which we can observe signs of a transformation in people’s engagement with medical services and commodities - from the households of the sick to the market for wholesale medicines - and discuss what they suggest about the causes and characteristics of the English medical revolution.

Bio: Patrick Wallis is a Reader in the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics. His doctoral work was on apothecaries in early modern London, supervised by Margaret Pelling, and he taught at the University of Nottingham before moving to LSE. His publications include Medicine and the Market in England and its colonies (2007), Quackery and Commerce in Seventeenth Century London (2005), and various articles on medical care, drugs, epidemics and other topics.