摘要：This paper shows how chemistry and customs inspections were employed as a tool of containment in late-19th century Spain. In fact, the control of merchandise, as that of people, has been employed in many countries not just to regulate trade and health, but also to protect a large range of interests, including political and economic ones. A wide variety of experts were involved in customs inspections: from physicians working in sanitary controls, and pharmacists in charge of public health and fraud inspections, to chemists and other officers controlling merchandise. First, the paper considers some links between sanitary and economic crises, and analyses the various roles played by customs. It also deals with the creation of customs laboratories to protect both the revenue and certain national interests. Second, it considers a particular case involving the inspection of drugs and medicines circulating from Portugal to Spain in the late-19th century. A complex network of experts and institutions were involved in the control of these products, each of them with its own interests. In this sense, customs inspections stablished a sort of “economic containment” in which science and chemical analysis were employed to avoid the circulation of foreign goods.
