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Transcript of Negotiating the (Global) Medical Marketplace Case Study: ‘Quackery’, Contestation and Consumer...
Negotiating the (Global) Medical
Marketplace Case Study: ‘Quackery’,
Contestation and Consumer Choice in London
Kill or CureWeek 10
Canaletto, ‘The Thames and the City’, 1746-7
London: ‘Great Wen’ or ‘Metropolis of Empire’
London: ‘a great, wicked, unweildy [sic] overgrown Town … where nothing dwells but Absurdities, Abuses, Accidents, Accusations, Admirations, Adventures, Adversities, Advertisements, Adulteries, Affidavits, Affectations, Affirmations, Afflictions, Affronts, Aggravations, Agitations, Agonies, Airs, Alarms, Ailments, Allurements, Alterations, Ambitions, … Anathemas, Animosities, Anxieties, Appointments, Apprehensions, Assemblies, Assessments, Assurances, Assignations, Attainders, Audacities, Aversions, &c.’
Hell upon earth (London: Roberts, 1729)
Wilhelm ten Rhyne,
Dissertation de Arthritide; Mantissa
Schematica de Acupunctura,
LONDON: Royal Society,
1683
Experimenting Elites
“The talk of this Cure ran about The Hague, and
made the conversation in other places...”
Sir William Temple, 1680
“Dere mi - you Angloise - you no believe in galvanism - be gar two-dree shock more make you young again.” c 1790s-
1810s
‘All Sciences a fasting Monsieur knows…’ Samuel Johnson, 1738
Global medicines and (Im)Patient-Consumers
Engelbert Kaempfer, A History of Japan, 1728
I suppose my readers will be pleas’d to practice according to the Chinese mode, as well as to adorn their houses with their curious manufactures, and to use their diet of Thea.” Sir John Floyer, 1707
Lorenz Heister, A General System of Surgery, 1743
The revealing tale of Mr. B.
Orthodox Doctor, Heterodox Innovator
John Elliotson 1791-1868• Cambridge graduate,
University College Hospital physician
• Among the first to take up Laennec’s new stethoscope, and to improve it
• Also one of the first men in London to give up his breeches in favour of the new-fangled trouser…
Elliotson’s innovations: successes
and scandals
Building a medical ‘alternative’: Homeopathy
lands in London• 1832 First
dispensaries: London and Bristol
• 1844 First professional association
• 1843-4 First journal
• 1849 First hospital
Building a medical ‘alternative’: Homeopathy
takes hold• 1859 LHH moves to
Great Ormond Street• By the 1860s,
homeopaths boasted 4 medical societies, 2 quarterly and 3 monthly journals , at least 5 hospitals, and 59 dispensaries in Britain
• 1866 LHH had treated 59,138 patients
Homeopathy, consumers and the ‘regular’
physician: the case of Mr. Kingdon
So why London?• A centre of government,
population and wealthThus a locus of:• medical care• medical education• medical and other publishing,
– and a magnet for knowledge, expertise, elites, and those who lived by serving them.
Still Global, Still
‘Alternative’?
‘For generations the Chinese have regarded several species of ginseng as possessing the greatest value in the treatment of diseases; …their great faith in this drug amounts to idolatry. Many of their … claims… are groundless and ridiculous… However, we must admit that this race of people eat more food liable to cause indigestion and still enjoy better digestion than any other race on the face of the globe.”
‘If snakes’ blood and crocodiles’ teeth
produced cures, he would use them.’
‘Report of the BMA Annual Clinical Meeting’ BMJ, 1968
Global medicine goes (back?) upmarket
And mass-market…
• Marketed in 100 countries;
• Largest single market: USA
• Marketed in the UK in association with Boots (and sold by many others)