This is a good book with a mediocre title. As is often the case in modern publishing, the subtitle tells the real story. From Physick contains historical essays (plus a short editor's introduction) by six authors on the selling of medicines to the British public. As with any volume of collected essays, the contributions vary in quality; in this case, they range from good to exceptional.

After Louise Curth's provocative introduction to the general topic, Patrick Wallis examines apothecaries and the selling of medicines in early modern London. Wallis sets the table for the rest of the book by laying out the breadth of pharmaceutical practice from manufacturing to retailing. He also looks at the diversity of the medicine-buying public, contrasting the habits of the rich and poor. Wallis makes a few important points that apply throughout From Physick: first, in contrast to most items they buy, consumers could not readily judge the quality of medicines and were forced to place considerable trust in the seller. Second, in the British context there is a long-standing tension between orthodox medicine (using a “ramshackle pharmacopoeia” [21]) and alternative therapies (including traditional folk remedies, religious healing rites, Paracelsian chemiatrics, homeopathy, etc.). And third, since the sixteenth century, apothecaries have been among the most innovative and aggressive retailers, typified by the dealers of proprietary medicines.

In her own contribution, Louise Hill Curth endeavors to cover early medical advertising in the popular press. Building on the work of Roy and Dorothy Porter on eighteenth-century medicine selling, Curth delves into the seventeenth-century evidence. This period was critical for the creation of a continuing demand for prepackaged branded remedies like Daffy's Elixir, which appeared in almanacs circa 1660 and was sold into the twentieth century.

In his chapter, Steven King examines the availability of medicines outside of London with special attention to the poor and middling citizenry. By comparing the situation in Lancashire and Northamptonshire, King pays attention to details such as the scarcity of coinage and various networks of payment and supply. He found a vibrant regional and local trade in medicines, often centering on individual physicians or wise women making large quantities of their family remedies. He concludes that during the 1700s, access to medicines increased greatly for the lower classes in Britain.

Near the beginning of her chapter on the rise of the chemist and druggist in the nineteenth century, Hilary Marland laments the fact that medical historians have paid scant attention to this segment of the health care scene. Rather than looking at the professionalization of this group, Marland examines their medical activities, that is, the practice of medicine from behind the counter. During the 1800s, chemists, in theory, made their special living through the preparing of prescriptions written by physicians. In reality, chemists survived by prescribing over the counter, mixing up family remedies, and selling a variety of drugs and patent medicines. Marland's well-researched chapter does a fine job outlining the varied collection of goods sold by chemists. She emphasizes the importance of chemists manufacturing family remedies but misses the chance to point out that many of these recipes came originally from the prescriptions of physicians. Moreover, the chapter might have benefited from more comparison of chemists with other similar retailers who competed over similar turf.

Following Marland on the nineteenth century is Stuart Anderson's masterful examination of the period 1900–1970. This is one of the best English-language essays on the history of pharmacy written in the last twenty-five years. He begins by pointing out that despite the appearance of a vast array of effective prescription medicines in the postwar era, the British public's “thirst for self-medication remained as strong as ever” (105). The first two sections of his chapter deal with regulating medicines and the influence of legislative initiatives. Anderson leads us from the virtually unregulated nineteenth-century environment up to the contemporary regulated marketplace. Along the way he concisely describes the importance of poisons, narcotics, abortifacients, and quack cures (for venereal disease, cancer, etc.) in spurring legislation. While these sections are valuable, the nine pages dedicated to “The Nature of Retail Medicines” are worth the price of the book. Here Anderson looks not only at the changing ingredients of proprietary medicines but at the changing dosage forms as well. A century ago, over three-quarters of medicines sold were liquids (mixtures, draughts, liniments, etc.); today about three-quarters of medicines bought ready-made are solid dosage forms (tablets, capsules, etc.). Anderson explains well the confluence of political, commercial, and scientific factors that produced this graduate shift and its importance. Last, he covers medicine retailing and the welfare state with an eye to social class issues. Six excellent figures illuminate graphically his major points.

From Physick concludes with Judy Slinn's brief account of drug development and marketing in the postwar era. The period, of course, was dominated by the advent of the National Health Service (NHS) and its largely unforeseen impact on the pharmaceutical industry. Two main wellsprings of change occurred simultaneously. First, the advent of penicillin and subsequent antibiotics gave rise to an expectation that drugs could cure disease rather than just treat symptoms. Second, once the British public settled into the NHS and its services, they came to expect a prescription at the conclusion of every physician visit. The result was an explosion in both new drugs and their prescribing, which catapulted the pharmaceutical industry into the top tier of modern British profit-making enterprises. Slinn does a solid job discussing governmental reaction to the explosion in medicine use. And it would be hard to think of a topic better than the “Cascade of Medicine” to conclude a book in a series on retailing and consumption.

In sum, From Physick to Pharmacology fills an important gap in the historical literature. The essays are well researched and written. Anyone interested in the history of British medicine or pharmacy would benefit from picking up a copy.