Trading in Drugs through Philadelphia in the Eighteenth Century

In the eighteenth century, an ingoing trade in medicinals was conducted with North America largely if not exclusively by smaller suppliers and firms. The steady demographic growth in the thirteen colonies due to European immigration and African slave labour was accompanied by a parallel growth in demand for both medicinals and their constituent raw materials, whether plant or mineral, and for proven or at least familiar proprietary medicines. By the later part of the century, the efforts to shift to reliance on local botanicals and minerals and local manufacturing had become pronounced. This paper proposes to indicate the extent of the trade in imported pharmaceuticals and the shift toward self-reliance, with special attention to the region around Philadelphia

Agricultural economics · Archaeology · Business · Economic history · Economics · Immigration · International trade · American History and Culture · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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