Apothecary’s wife by Karen Bloom Gevirtz – Review

This attractive book recounts how deep problems in the current pharmaceutical and medical industries in the United States stem from the changes that took place centuries ago.

Before the scientific revolution began in the 1500s, medicine and healing was an area that belonged only to women. Based on recipes for herbal or herbaceous tools that women developed through tasting and error generations and were freely shared with their girls, families, friends and near neighbors, these recipes were considered to be public property. Even today, we benefit from the legacy these women left behind. For example, the willow belly was administered to relieve pain; And willow bark contains acetylsalicylic acid – aspirin.

This healing system continued for hundreds of years before it was replaced in less than a century with something that was radically different. Between 1650 and 1740, women were driven by their historical and traditional role by the men who decided to create the modern medical profit system. Using the same ingredients and accurate recipes for their medicines, apothecaries “professional” and doctors convinced the public that their remedies were superior to households created by women. Within a short period of time, the medicines were transformed from home remedies that were freely available to all in goods that were only available to those who could afford them. This medical and pharmaceutical industry dominated by men promoted the development of a system of values ​​that prioritize the economic health of corporates on human health.

Despite what most people believed, the scientific revolution did not improve the medicines of the time, but it once turned reliable female heales into potentially dangerous quacks, while men were raised to knowledgeable and reliable experts. This book presents a critical analysis and an overview of the past and the economic system that emerged when medicines were considered a commodity and how this idea helped support the development and practice of the so-called “modern” Western medicine.

You will learn about this complex story and more in the new book of Karen Bloom Gevirtz, Apothecary’s wife: Hidden History of Medicine and How was a Conduct (University of California Press, 2024; Amazon US / Amazon UK). This book is a timely reminder that the current greed -based health care system is a relatively recent man -made scheme. The author, a former English professional, gender and medical scientist – expertise that soon will undoubtedly become illegal in the United States – and a scholar of seventeenth and eighteenth -century British texts is an excellent guide to leading us to our journey to enlightenment. Professor Gevirtz’s book reveals mostly forgotten origin of medical science, placing women at the center of that story.

This book is an economic, scientific and social history strictly researched of an interesting time when the freely available medicine changed to a commodity that oversees, practiced and sold for those who could afford it. This satisfactory and readable book goes a long way towards explaining how we ended up where we are today, where profits are more important than people’s lives. Compelling and attractive (and sometimes angry), this book presents an essential education for all interested in history, medicine, or the social and economic contexts that created the modern health care system.

Highly recommended.

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Note: I received an irreversible test of the page of this book by the publisher in exchange for my honest, impartial review. Moreover, as an Amazon collaborator, I can earn micropayments from Amazon’s qualifying purchases made through links in this section.