A History of Healthcare

From the 1870s through the 1920s, wagons loaded with roots and herbs like this one were a common sight at country stores and herb warehouses in Appalachia. Credit: Buncombe County Special Collections Library
From the 1870s through the 1920s, wagons loaded with roots and herbs like this one were a common sight at country stores and herb warehouses in Appalachia. Credit: Buncombe County Special Collections Library

Ginseng and Big Pharma: How Appalachia Built an Industry that Would Later Exploit It

by on February 22, 2022 Comments are Disabled

More than a century before the likes of Purdue Pharma began flooding Appalachian communities with opioids and destroying lives, giant pharmaceutical companies had a very different relationship to the mountain region.   Indeed, years of research into business records and country store ledgers has revealed that Appalachian root diggers and herb […]

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