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The Apothecary's Wife

The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity

Karen Bloom Gevirtz

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English
Bloomsbury
04 March 2025
How women were removed from the Scientific Revolution, and what we lost as a result.

The running joke in Europe for centuries was that anyone in a hurry to die should call the doctor. As far back as ancient Greece, physicians were notorious for administering painful and often fatal treatments and charging for the privilege. For the most reliable, effective treatment, the ill and injured went to the women in their life. This system lasted hundreds of years and it took less than a century to replace.

Between 1650 and 1740, physicians and apothecaries became the preferred providers to the hurt and sick, and women’s domestic treatments were considered inferior. It was a brilliant campaign – the effectiveness of medication and its ingredients had not changed – but in the cultural consciousness, the domestic female and the physician had switched places: she the ineffective, potentially dangerous quack; he the knowledgeable, trustworthy expert.

The Apothecary’s Wife tells this other, overlooked story of medicine, that male professionals used the opportunity created by the Scientific Revolution to wrest control of medicine away from women. In doing so, they transformed domestic, organic medication and its communal methods and concepts into an economic system. Thoroughly researched and fiercely argued, Gevirtz shows how a great deal was lost in this moment in history, and explores how this inheritance underpins today’s for-profit medication system, and the global healthcare crises we face.
By:  
Imprint:   Bloomsbury
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 240mm,  Width: 158mm,  Spine: 32mm
Weight:   560g
ISBN:   9781803286990
ISBN 10:   1803286997
Pages:   336
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Karen Bloom Gevirtz is Professor of English and former co-director of Women and Gender Studies, specializing in gender and the language of science, at Seton Hall University. Gevirtz earned a BA in English from Brown University, where she was also pre-med and a research assistant in a neurochemistry lab. She has a PhD in British Literature and was awarded a Fellowship to the Folger Shakespeare Library – one of many funding awards she has received for her archival research. Internationally recognized for her scholarship on women and writing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, she is the author of a number of academic articles and three academic books. Her work has also appeared in the HuffPost and the Wall Street Journal. She lives in New Jersey, USA.

Reviews for The Apothecary's Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity

Economic, scientific and social history combine in this extraordinary, rigorously researched, revisionist account of the crucial role domestic medicine played in the past – and how it might point to a healthier future. * Paul Lay, author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate * A rich and pacey narrative history setting out the position of women during the commodification of medicine. * Sara Read, author of The Gossips' Choice * Trenchant, witty, and erudite, The Apothecary’s Wife is a timely reminder that the profit-driven commodification of healthcare and medicine in our society is neither natural nor pre-ordained, but rather man-made. Gevirtz’s book uncovers the largely forgotten domestic origins of those sciences, centering women in that history. It’s a story everyone should know. * Jon Michaud, author of Last Call at Coogan’s: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar * Truly splendid. Gevirtz not only creates a more nuanced history of medicine, but also makes a strong case that our medical practices today are not inevitable but the result of professional and institutional choices. A significant contribution to our understanding of medicine, economics, and gender. * Marilyn Francus, Professor Emerita of English at West Virginia University * Karen Bloom Gevirtz' fascinating history of medicine shines a light on the forgotten stories of female physicians * The Telegraph * Karen Bloom Gevirtz excels at unearthing unexpected stories about sickness and death, about love and rivalry, about compassion and greed... The Apothecary's Wife delivers serious messages about the evils of consumerism, but it is also a good read that exposes some quirky corners of 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century Britain. * Literary Review *


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