For the pharmacy and for the factory. France and the quinquina trade in the 19th century

Plant trade: Empires, trade networks and consumption (16th-20th century)
By Claire Fredj
English

Consumed in various forms, cinchona was used by a pharmaceutical industry that underwent significant changes during the 19th century. This industry was organized between pharmacies (where pharmacists prepared their medicines) and quinine factories, which produced on a large scale. How was the Cinchona trade organized between the areas of production – the Andean republics, then increasingly India and Java – and France? Following the circuit that brought the bark to the places where it was transformed, allows the market organization of a strategic product to be sketched out. It addresses the commercial aspect of the history of drugs: the evolution of the supply, the diversity of the demand, the relations between the operators dealing with the harvest and the buyers in the sites of production, in the ports of importation, and then in the places of their transformation.

Keywords

  • France
  • 19th century
  • cinchona
  • quinine
  • trading houses
  • pharmaceutical industry
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