ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the early modern England, medical potions produced within the household were supplemented by those produced by apothecaries or other merchants. It looks at the way that the medical market place functioned in the regions, contrasting urbanizing Lancashire with rural Northamptonshire and also referring for contrast to the remoter areas of North–West England. The book shows how the rapid industrialization and urbanization of northern England in the nineteenth century was accompanied by a decline in the number of 'pedlar-druggists' and an even more rapid rise in the number of chemists and druggists operating from fixed, specialist shops. It describes the issue of the regulation of the sale of drugs with a potentially harmful impact on the patient and shows how the state and its agents began to define medicinal substances.
