抄録
The purpose of this paper is first to analyze the change in the system that regulated the production and sale of medicine in the latter half of the 19th century and second to make clear how the management of the home distribution system of patent medicines in Toyama changed as its result. This paper examines the case of the Okamoto family, the influential merchant family that owned large tracts of commercial land, and the peddling of patent medicines in Takaoka in the early Meiji era.
As a result of the examination, the following point became clear. The merchant in Takaoka financed owners of commercial land to peddle patent medicines. These peddlers lived in villages around Takaoka, and the management of their peddling business changed with the financing from the merchant.
By the 1860s, the peddlers in Takaoka were classified into five ranks by income, because several feudal loads had for years forbidden the peddlers from entering their domains. And as a result, this started the division in the management of the business into the sponsor, the chemist's shop, and the peddler in Takaoka. The home distribution system of patent medicines in Takaoka was thus able to adapt to the medical policy of the Meiji government, which regulated both the production and the distribution of patent medicines.
