The pharmacy of the Royal Miners'·Hospital in medical assistance sfrategies of the Almadén stablishment, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Abstract

The scarcety of labour as a result of the extreme health hazards deriving from the quick-silver extraction process was one of the factors constraining the production of mercury in Almadén during the second half of the 18th and the first decades or the 19th centuries. In the attempt of coping with this situation, the medical care strategy deployed by the Royal Treasury Department of Spain, competent for the minig sector, relied heavily on the Royal Miners' Hospital founded in 1752. The pharmacy of the hospital which had been added in 1782, together with a subsidiary opened some time later in town, allowed to expand health care coverage beyond the wards of the hospital. By means of price discounts for miners, the sale on credit or contractually agreed pharmacy fees with the neighbouring villages, the workers could avail themselves of the necessary drugs. In this way the pharmacy made its contribution to the recovery of the workforce, alleviating the burden of the hospital in attending the miner' ailments, who whithout this ready supply of drugs, would have opted to be hospitalized.