Merchants of medicines : the commerce and coercion of health in Britain's long eighteenth century

"The circulation of medicine and medical knowledge in Britain was long entangled not simply with the mechanisms of commerce but with those of empire. The same networks that enabled the articulation and defense of imperial priorities also transmitted knowledge and value in ways that ultimately transformed the concept and norms of the field of medicine-and the conception of trade more broadly. From this entanglement gradually arose what we can recognize today as a modern, transnational mode of exchange of money, information, and medical standards. Zachary Dorner's book illuminates the codependence of empire and medical knowledge as they took root around the globe, directly shaping the quality and nature of life itself."