Abstract
Retailing was generally organised and consistent across the country, with a recognisable structure and established practices. The price of the medicines was fixed, national and often unchanged over decades. Any shopkeeper could sell medicines, but, for good reasons, newspaper printers and booksellers were dominant in the late eighteenth century, before being joined by the druggists after the 1802–1804 Medicines Acts. Many newspaper printers and some booksellers obtained a substantial income from selling medicines, but they were not regarded as alternative practitioners by the regular medical practitioners. Selling patent medicines was an autonomous component of the local medical market, not, as many have supposed, an amorphous element of the varied irregular practice within it.
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Mackintosh, A. (2018). Supplying the Consumer. In: The Patent Medicines Industry in Georgian England. Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69778-9_5
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