Abstract
The exposure of the patent medicines industry requires a reappraisal of Georgian healthcare, with patent medicines positioned as a third force in the market, separate from both orthodox therapy and irregular practice. The history of the industry also provides legacies for scholars of the history of commerce and print history. After the Georgian era, sales of patent medicines grew, particularly from the 1860s, but changes in the medical market pushed them towards irregular practice/quackery. Campaigns by the uniting medical profession for their control or elimination had little effect until the twentieth century. Patent medicines were abolished by law in 1941, but many features of the Georgian industry live on in today’s proprietary medicines.
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Mackintosh, A. (2018). The Legacy of the Patent Medicines Industry. 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_9
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