As now, war was an expensive enterprise in the eighteenth century, costing both lives and money. Savings in both areas could be found via judicious choices of the most efficacious medicines at the most reasonable prices. Easily stated, however, the problem was not easily solved. How could the British East India Company, for example, ensure that cures shipped from Britain to India were unadulterated and reasonably priced, and how could one balance what was often a tension between quality and cost? What was required was the ability to trust the probity and capacities of purveyors of materia medica. Yet these merchants, in their turn, needed faith in those who would purchase their wares—usually on credit—as they tried to turn a profit from a business that grew rapidly in scope across a century that also saw profound political instabilities and concomitant financial risks.
In this well-researched and solidly crafted monograph,...