The Apothecary's Wife
The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity
Karen Bloom Gevirtz’s compelling history book The Apothecary’s Wife covers the commodification of medicine and the sidelining of women in medical history.
In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the Scientific Revolution transformed how medicine was practiced in a way that left out people in need. Medications made at home were replaced by prescribed medications with consequences leading into the present. To capture this transformation, the book introduces historical figures including Mary Trye, who practiced medicine under the title of medicatrix, and Joanna Stephens, who had a real cure for kidney stones in the eighteenth century. They and other women were sidelined in the new era of medicine, though, as remedies began to cost money, required a physician’s prescription, and were supplied by apothecaries.
Personal recipe books and medical prescriptions are used to illustrate how medicine changed from work that housewives did at home into a specialized practice. Newspapers, poems, and plays are used to show how the public’s perception of medicine and its practitioners evolved in tandem with these shifts. Lay language is used to elucidate the book’s scientific topics, and touches of whimsy and dry humor enliven it: mansplaining, the book suggests, began early in human history. In addition, an imaginary time-traveling patient is used to illustrate changes to medicine across the centuries, with the book suggesting that such a patient would be shocked to be expected to pay for medications and would be baffled by the change from homemade medications to prescribed treatments.
The Apothecary’s Wife is a stunning history book about the effects of the Scientific Revolution on the practice of medicine.
Reviewed by
Carolina Ciucci
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
