The Colonial Life of Pharmaceuticals
Medicines and Modernity in Vietnam

Innovative examination of the early globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, arguing that colonialism was crucial to the worldwide diffusion of modern medicines.

Laurence Monnais (Author)

9781108474665, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 August 2019

290 pages, 6 b/w illus. 3 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.8 cm, 0.6 kg

'Brilliantly crafted and ingeniously researched, this is an absorbing exploration of medicalization and modernization under colonial rule that underscores the foundational agency of the colonized and the persistence of therapeutic pluralism. A richly textured study of Vietnam, it also offers a compelling model for understanding the vital role of medicines as vectors of social change across the Global South.' John Harley Warner, Yale University, Connecticut

Situated at the crossroads between the history of colonialism, of modern Southeast Asia, and of medical pluralism, this history of medicine and health traces the life of pharmaceuticals in Vietnam under French rule. Laurence Monnais examines the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, looking at both circulation and consumption, considering access to drugs and the existence of multiple therapeutic options in a colonial context. She argues that colonialism was crucial to the worldwide diffusion of modern medicines and speaks to contemporary concerns regarding over-reliance on pharmaceuticals, drug toxicity, self-medication, and the accessibility of effective medicines. Retracing the steps by which pharmaceuticals were produced and distributed, readers meet the many players in the process, from colonial doctors to private pharmacists, from consumers to various drug traders and healers. Yet this is not primarily a history of medicines as objects of colonial science, but rather a history of medicines as tools of social change.

1. Making medicines modern, making medicines colonial
2. Medicines in colonial (public) health
3. The mirage of mass distribution: state Quinine and essential medicines
4. The many lives of medicines in the private market
5. Crimes and misdemeanors: transactions and transgressions in the therapeutic market
6. Learning effects: lived experiences, pharmaceutical publicity and the roots of selective demand
7. Medicines as vectors of modernization and medicalization
8. Therapeutic pluralism under colonial rule
Conclusion: from colonial medicines to post-colonial health.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Asian history [HBJF]