Medicine exchange between the Philippines and New Spain

What is it about?

This article outlines the establishment of a monopoly contract for medicines in Manila. Although colonial medicine has gained prominence in current historiography, little is known about New Spain’s role in providing remedies to the Spanish population in the Philippines. This article maps the factors that motivated the Spanish Crown to modify a two-centuries-old medicine provision system led by New Spanish merchandisers and establish a monopoly contract (asiento) to administer and prepare all necessary medical treatments. Examining the causes, this study argues that this monopoly contract represents a unique royal strategy in the Philippines, in concordance with the Bourbon dynasty’s ambition to improve the medical care of Spaniards in the eighteenth century. Furthermore, this new agreement signified a period of improvement in the conditions of the Royal Hospital for Spaniards in Manila and a new era in the manufacture of medicines in the Philippines that would last throughout the first half of the eighteenth century.

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Photo by Vero Manrique on Unsplash

Photo by Vero Manrique on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work provides an exciting sight of the Spanish crown's public assistance to its subjects in the Philippines, besides delving into medicine exchange between New Spain and the Philippines on the Manila Galleons and the integration of plants native to South East Asia, China, and the Philippines into European pharmacopoeias for healing Spaniards based in Manila.