The Secret Trade : Booksellers, advertisement and sexually transmitted diseases in eighteenth-century London

Abstract: This thesis examines the relationship between booksellers, medicine for sexually transmitted diseases, and advertising in eighteenth-century London. The analysis is based on trade cards, prints and advertisement in newspapers and periodicals. The results of the thesis show that booksellers were an active part of the medical marketplace and came to influence the sale of patent medicine in both the capital and in other parts of England during the eighteenth century. The study thus shows that booksellers had a much more important role in the English medical marketplace than previous research has shown. Sex and sexually transmitted diseases regularly featured in advertisement, demonstrating that both sex and sexually transmitted diseases were part of everyday life in eighteenth century London.