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[caption id="attachment_2772" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Known as a seron in its native Peru, South America, this rawhide bag was used to store and carry cinchona bark. For centuries, local people had chewed or ground up the bark as a treatment for fevers and malaria. As the European powers began to expand both their trade routes and empires, cinchona became a highly important commodity. In the early 1800s, quinine, the primary anti-malarial component of cinchona, was first isolated, allowing the production of more effective drugs to combat the disease. This was originally collected by Hipolito Ruiz Lopez and Antonio Pavon y Jimienz during their 1777 expedition in Peru. In 1930, Alfonso XIII, King of Spain (1886-1941) presented it to the Wellcome Collections. in 1930 © Wellcome Images[/caption]Trading Medicines: The Global Drug Trade in Perspective10th January 2014, The London School of EconomicsOrganized by Clare Griffin (Cambridge) and Patrick Wallis (LSE)This half-day workshop examines the supply and reception of medical drugs during the creation of an early modern global market from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth centuries. It addresses a key question in the history of medicine: how did early modern globalisation impact medicine in Europe?The workshop explores developments across various European nations, their empires, and global trading networks. Papers will focus on the broad sweep of medical commodities that were exchanged, taking a long view and considering as many different substances as possible, in order to build a big picture of developments across the early modern period.For more information see:http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/Conferences/TradingMedicines/TradingMedicines.aspxTo register email: Dr Clare Griffin at cg315@cam.ac.uk