Description
Book SynopsisAt a time when genetics and informatics are seen to transform therapeutic thinking once again, it is pertinent to look back to earlier therapeutic regimes. The long twentieth century has witnessed a tremendous upsurge in new drugs, remedies and therapeutic strategies. The cultural environments in which they emerged, the social circumstances from which they sprang, and the social effects that remedies engendered are treated in depth in this collection of essays. They address the historical variety of remedies as economic, social, and cultural objects and discuss their particular forms of production and distribution. Drawing predominantly on British and Dutch cases, the curious ‘biographies’ of modern drugs like streptomycin, taxol and interferon are reviewed, the shifting boundaries between medicines and toxic substances are explored, and remedial strategies such as contraceptives are scrutinised. This book, which emerged out of an Anglo-Dutch conference held in 1998, explores cultures of remedies from a comparative perspective.
Trade Review”All fourteen papers […] are well documented…” - in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2004, Vol. 78
Table of ContentsContributors Introduction Godelieve van Heteren, Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Tilli Tansey Changing Places: Illicit Drugs, Medicines, Tobacco and Nicotine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Virginia Berridge Pharmacists, Druggists and the Spirit of Thorbecke: The Shaping of the Dutch Pharmacy, 1865-c. 1920 Frank Huisman The 'Dutch Drugstore’ as an Attempt to Reshape Pharmaceutical Practice: The Conflict between Ethical and Commercial Pharmacy in Dutch Cultures of Medicines Rein Vos Community Pharmacy in Great Britain: Mediation at the Boundary between Professional and Lay Care, 1920 to 1995 Stuart Anderson Homoeopathy and Its Concern for Purity: The Dutch Case in the Early-Twentieth Century Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra Drugs for Healthy People: The Culture of Testing Hormonal Contraceptives for Women and Men Nelly Oudshoorn Contrasting Cultures of Contraception: Birth Control Clinics and the Working-Classes in Britain between the Wars Kate Fisher 'Public Spirited and Enterprising Volunteers’: The Council for the Investigation of Fertility Control and the British Clinical Trials of the Contraceptive Pill, 1959-1973 Lara Marks Hygienic Articles, Patent Medicines and Rubber Goods’: Markets and Meanings in Early Twentieth Century Netherlands Willem de Blécourt “Streptomycin in Postwar Britain: A Cultural History of a Miracle Drug Alan Yoshioka About Media, Audiences and Marketing Medicines: The Interferons Toine Pieters The Billion Dollar Molecule: Taxol in Historical and Theoretical Perspective Vivien Walsh & Jordan Goodman Afterword. Remedies: Who Cares? Remedies, Care and Cultures of Healing in the Twentieth Century Godelieve van Heteren Index
