- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores the emergence of tropical medicine within the context of European colonial expansion and discusses how scientists took advantage of their proximity to like-minded colleagues in ...
More
This chapter explores the emergence of tropical medicine within the context of European colonial expansion and discusses how scientists took advantage of their proximity to like-minded colleagues in neighboring countries to further their research and expand their discipline's reach.Less
This chapter explores the emergence of tropical medicine within the context of European colonial expansion and discusses how scientists took advantage of their proximity to like-minded colleagues in neighboring countries to further their research and expand their discipline's reach.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846318290
- eISBN:
- 9781846317835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317835.001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the practices of colonialism in the tropical world were informed by the epistemologies and therapeutics of Western science and medicine. In their ...
More
From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the practices of colonialism in the tropical world were informed by the epistemologies and therapeutics of Western science and medicine. In their conquest and colonisation of the non-European territories, Europe imbued its practices of settlement with the dread of ‘tropical diseases’. This book situates the history of tropical medicine within the political and economic contexts of colonialism. In particular, it explores the relationship between tropical medicine, the colonial state, and colonial enclaves in India by focusing on two enclaves in north Bengal: the hill-station of Darjeeling and the adjacent tea plantations. The chapter argues that the plantations and sanatoriums of the Darjeeling hill-station were coterminous enclaves, in part due to factors such as political economy, geographical proximity, and similarities in colonisation processes and colonial investments.Less
From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the practices of colonialism in the tropical world were informed by the epistemologies and therapeutics of Western science and medicine. In their conquest and colonisation of the non-European territories, Europe imbued its practices of settlement with the dread of ‘tropical diseases’. This book situates the history of tropical medicine within the political and economic contexts of colonialism. In particular, it explores the relationship between tropical medicine, the colonial state, and colonial enclaves in India by focusing on two enclaves in north Bengal: the hill-station of Darjeeling and the adjacent tea plantations. The chapter argues that the plantations and sanatoriums of the Darjeeling hill-station were coterminous enclaves, in part due to factors such as political economy, geographical proximity, and similarities in colonisation processes and colonial investments.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on the teachers, students, and culture of tropical medicine. It demonstrates how broad-based values as well as specialized knowledge united teacher and student, and argues that ...
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This chapter focuses on the teachers, students, and culture of tropical medicine. It demonstrates how broad-based values as well as specialized knowledge united teacher and student, and argues that students' European training and their fieldwork allowed for social conditioning, reinforcing certain ideas and practices and creating an in-group mentality that enhanced a shared view of science and colonialism.Less
This chapter focuses on the teachers, students, and culture of tropical medicine. It demonstrates how broad-based values as well as specialized knowledge united teacher and student, and argues that students' European training and their fieldwork allowed for social conditioning, reinforcing certain ideas and practices and creating an in-group mentality that enhanced a shared view of science and colonialism.
Deborah Neill
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book ...
More
This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book shows that this transnational collaboration in a context of European colonialism, scientific discovery, and internationalism shaped the character of a new medical specialty. Even in an era of intense competition among European states, practitioners of tropical medicine created a transnational scientific community through which they influenced each other and the health care that was introduced to the tropical world. One of the most important developments in the shaping of tropical medicine as a specialty was the major sleeping sickness epidemic that spread across sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the century. The book describes how scientists and doctors collaborated across borders to control, contain, and find a treatment for the disease. It demonstrates that these medical specialists' shared notions of “Europeanness,” rooted in common beliefs about scientific, technological, and racial superiority, led them to establish a colonial medical practice in Africa that sometimes oppressed the same people it was created to help.Less
This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book shows that this transnational collaboration in a context of European colonialism, scientific discovery, and internationalism shaped the character of a new medical specialty. Even in an era of intense competition among European states, practitioners of tropical medicine created a transnational scientific community through which they influenced each other and the health care that was introduced to the tropical world. One of the most important developments in the shaping of tropical medicine as a specialty was the major sleeping sickness epidemic that spread across sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the century. The book describes how scientists and doctors collaborated across borders to control, contain, and find a treatment for the disease. It demonstrates that these medical specialists' shared notions of “Europeanness,” rooted in common beliefs about scientific, technological, and racial superiority, led them to establish a colonial medical practice in Africa that sometimes oppressed the same people it was created to help.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846318290
- eISBN:
- 9781846317835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317835.007
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter explores the dynamics between colonial enclaves and tropical medicine in twentieth-century India. Although British Indian medical discourse and practice accepted germ theory, miasmatic ...
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This chapter explores the dynamics between colonial enclaves and tropical medicine in twentieth-century India. Although British Indian medical discourse and practice accepted germ theory, miasmatic and climatic theories of disease were never abandoned. In colonial India, tropical diseases remained tied to specific ‘zones’ and ‘localities’. The tea plantations were an important site for the exploration of new ideas and experimentation designed to control malaria and other archetypical ‘tropical’ disease in India in general and Bengal in particular. The chapter first provides an overview of malaria in the Darjeeling foothills before turning to the issue of acquired immunity to malarial fever through racial acclimatisation. It also discusses the debate between prevention and prophylaxis in the military cantonment called Mian Mir, the anti-malarial operation at Meenglas Tea Estate in the Duars, the relationship between tropical medicine and entrepreneurial patronage, and research on hookworm in the tea plantations.Less
This chapter explores the dynamics between colonial enclaves and tropical medicine in twentieth-century India. Although British Indian medical discourse and practice accepted germ theory, miasmatic and climatic theories of disease were never abandoned. In colonial India, tropical diseases remained tied to specific ‘zones’ and ‘localities’. The tea plantations were an important site for the exploration of new ideas and experimentation designed to control malaria and other archetypical ‘tropical’ disease in India in general and Bengal in particular. The chapter first provides an overview of malaria in the Darjeeling foothills before turning to the issue of acquired immunity to malarial fever through racial acclimatisation. It also discusses the debate between prevention and prophylaxis in the military cantonment called Mian Mir, the anti-malarial operation at Meenglas Tea Estate in the Duars, the relationship between tropical medicine and entrepreneurial patronage, and research on hookworm in the tea plantations.
Michael A. Osborne
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226114521
- eISBN:
- 9780226114668
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226114668.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book is a history of the ideas, people, and institutions animating French colonial and tropical medicine from its origins through World War I. Until the 1890s most of what counted as colonial ...
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This book is a history of the ideas, people, and institutions animating French colonial and tropical medicine from its origins through World War I. Until the 1890s most of what counted as colonial medicine was actually linked to or simply was naval medicine, an activity taught at schools in the port cities of Brest, Rochefort-sur-Mer, Toulon, and Bordeaux. The study utilizes Jürgen Habermas’s “lifeworld” concept and more recent place-based techniques to chart the emergence, modification, and eventual demise of this discrete and largely separate species of French medicine pressured by reforms in medicine, education, colonial and domestic governance, and penology. The Parisian and civilian emphasis of French medical history merits re-evaluation. For colonial medicine and the study of “exotic pathology,” the action was not in Paris but in provincial naval ports, in the colonies, on the “great school of the sea,” and later in Bordeaux and Marseille. Provincial cities had very different resource endowments from what was found in Paris, and naval medical training and career patterns where vastly different from those of civil medicine although they intersected from time to time. It was, as its practitioners noted, a special or distinctive sort of medicine in virtue of its content, practitioners, patients, diseases, and places of practice. Considering its history enables a more comprehensive and nuanced view of French medicine, medical geography, and race theory. It also signals the navy’s crucial role in combating yellow fever, lead poisoning, and investigating the racial dimensions of health.Less
This book is a history of the ideas, people, and institutions animating French colonial and tropical medicine from its origins through World War I. Until the 1890s most of what counted as colonial medicine was actually linked to or simply was naval medicine, an activity taught at schools in the port cities of Brest, Rochefort-sur-Mer, Toulon, and Bordeaux. The study utilizes Jürgen Habermas’s “lifeworld” concept and more recent place-based techniques to chart the emergence, modification, and eventual demise of this discrete and largely separate species of French medicine pressured by reforms in medicine, education, colonial and domestic governance, and penology. The Parisian and civilian emphasis of French medical history merits re-evaluation. For colonial medicine and the study of “exotic pathology,” the action was not in Paris but in provincial naval ports, in the colonies, on the “great school of the sea,” and later in Bordeaux and Marseille. Provincial cities had very different resource endowments from what was found in Paris, and naval medical training and career patterns where vastly different from those of civil medicine although they intersected from time to time. It was, as its practitioners noted, a special or distinctive sort of medicine in virtue of its content, practitioners, patients, diseases, and places of practice. Considering its history enables a more comprehensive and nuanced view of French medicine, medical geography, and race theory. It also signals the navy’s crucial role in combating yellow fever, lead poisoning, and investigating the racial dimensions of health.
Nandini Bhattacharya
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846318290
- eISBN:
- 9781846317835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317835
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
Colonialism created exclusive economic and segregatory social spaces for the exploitation and management of natural and human resources, in the form of plantations, ports, mining towns, hill ...
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Colonialism created exclusive economic and segregatory social spaces for the exploitation and management of natural and human resources, in the form of plantations, ports, mining towns, hill stations, civil lines, and new urban centres for Europeans. This book studies the social history of medicine within two intersecting enclaves in colonial India: the hill-station of Darjeeling, which incorporated the sanitarian and racial norms of the British Raj; and in the adjacent tea plantations of North Bengal, which produced tea for the global market. It explores the demographic and environmental transformation of the region; the racialisation of urban spaces and its contestations; the establishment of hill sanatoria; the expansion of tea cultivation; labour emigration; and the paternalistic modes of healthcare in the plantation. The book also examines how the threat of epidemics and riots informed the conflictual relationship between the plantations and the adjacent agricultural villages and district towns. It reveals how tropical medicine was practised in its ‘field’; researches in malaria; how hookworm, dysentery, cholera, and leprosy were informed by investigations here; and how the exigencies of the colonial state, private entrepreneurship, and municipal governance subverted their implementation. The book establishes the vital link between medicine, the political economy, and the social history of colonialism, demonstrating that while enclaves were essential and distinctive sites of the articulation of colonial power and economy, they were not isolated sites. It shows that the critical aspect of the colonial enclaves was in their interconnectedness; with other enclaves, with the global economy, and with international medical research.Less
Colonialism created exclusive economic and segregatory social spaces for the exploitation and management of natural and human resources, in the form of plantations, ports, mining towns, hill stations, civil lines, and new urban centres for Europeans. This book studies the social history of medicine within two intersecting enclaves in colonial India: the hill-station of Darjeeling, which incorporated the sanitarian and racial norms of the British Raj; and in the adjacent tea plantations of North Bengal, which produced tea for the global market. It explores the demographic and environmental transformation of the region; the racialisation of urban spaces and its contestations; the establishment of hill sanatoria; the expansion of tea cultivation; labour emigration; and the paternalistic modes of healthcare in the plantation. The book also examines how the threat of epidemics and riots informed the conflictual relationship between the plantations and the adjacent agricultural villages and district towns. It reveals how tropical medicine was practised in its ‘field’; researches in malaria; how hookworm, dysentery, cholera, and leprosy were informed by investigations here; and how the exigencies of the colonial state, private entrepreneurship, and municipal governance subverted their implementation. The book establishes the vital link between medicine, the political economy, and the social history of colonialism, demonstrating that while enclaves were essential and distinctive sites of the articulation of colonial power and economy, they were not isolated sites. It shows that the critical aspect of the colonial enclaves was in their interconnectedness; with other enclaves, with the global economy, and with international medical research.
Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Yogan Pillay, and Timothy H. Holtz
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199392285
- eISBN:
- 9780199392315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199392285.003.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Epidemiology
This chapter explores historical antecedents of and influences on modern international (and global) health, including plague pandemics, European imperialism, colonial conquest, the Atlantic slave ...
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This chapter explores historical antecedents of and influences on modern international (and global) health, including plague pandemics, European imperialism, colonial conquest, the Atlantic slave trade, and the Industrial Revolution. It examines ideologies and practices of colonial health and tropical medicine, disease problems exacerbated by imperialism (malaria, yellow fever, and trypanosomiasis), and how scientific research and public health measures implemented in American, African, and Asian colonies were justified by missionary and “civilizing” rationales and by protecting imperial military and commercial interests. It traces the impact of 19th century industrialization on health, work, and living conditions, and the rise of bacteriologically-based public health, spanning imperialism and industrialization. It analyzes how sanitary concerns—combined with trade, migration, economic, and security imperatives—motivated international sanitary cooperation and institutions, initially in the Americas. It reviews Rockefeller Foundation-pioneered donor-driven technical approaches, and the interwar League of Nations Health Organisation’s embrace of more aspirational social medicine approaches.Less
This chapter explores historical antecedents of and influences on modern international (and global) health, including plague pandemics, European imperialism, colonial conquest, the Atlantic slave trade, and the Industrial Revolution. It examines ideologies and practices of colonial health and tropical medicine, disease problems exacerbated by imperialism (malaria, yellow fever, and trypanosomiasis), and how scientific research and public health measures implemented in American, African, and Asian colonies were justified by missionary and “civilizing” rationales and by protecting imperial military and commercial interests. It traces the impact of 19th century industrialization on health, work, and living conditions, and the rise of bacteriologically-based public health, spanning imperialism and industrialization. It analyzes how sanitary concerns—combined with trade, migration, economic, and security imperatives—motivated international sanitary cooperation and institutions, initially in the Americas. It reviews Rockefeller Foundation-pioneered donor-driven technical approaches, and the interwar League of Nations Health Organisation’s embrace of more aspirational social medicine approaches.
Juanita De Barros
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469616056
- eISBN:
- 9781469617930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469616056.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter examines the influence of the ideas and institutions of tropical medicine on perceptions of Caribbean populations, at a time when migration and tropical diseases were considered ...
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This chapter examines the influence of the ideas and institutions of tropical medicine on perceptions of Caribbean populations, at a time when migration and tropical diseases were considered obstacles to population growth. Imperial and colonial officials, together with members of the multiethnic West Indian middle and professional classes, believed that the main solutions to shrinking and weakened populations were to increase immigration and eradicate diseases. Concerns about venereal diseases, infant mortality, and the moral calculations about the value of children's lives led to a variety of public health initiatives. However, many Caribbean men and women saw child-saving as an economic and a moral imperative that had major implications for their reputation as civilized people.Less
This chapter examines the influence of the ideas and institutions of tropical medicine on perceptions of Caribbean populations, at a time when migration and tropical diseases were considered obstacles to population growth. Imperial and colonial officials, together with members of the multiethnic West Indian middle and professional classes, believed that the main solutions to shrinking and weakened populations were to increase immigration and eradicate diseases. Concerns about venereal diseases, infant mortality, and the moral calculations about the value of children's lives led to a variety of public health initiatives. However, many Caribbean men and women saw child-saving as an economic and a moral imperative that had major implications for their reputation as civilized people.
John Pemberton
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780198569541
- eISBN:
- 9780191724077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198569541.003.0002
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter begins recollections of how epidemiology was perceived in the 1930s. It then discusses the concept of social medicine in relation to clinical medicine, politics, and war as well as the ...
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This chapter begins recollections of how epidemiology was perceived in the 1930s. It then discusses the concept of social medicine in relation to clinical medicine, politics, and war as well as the acceptance of social medicine as part of physicians' training. The establishment of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and origins and contribution to epidemiology of the International Epidemiological Association are discussed.Less
This chapter begins recollections of how epidemiology was perceived in the 1930s. It then discusses the concept of social medicine in relation to clinical medicine, politics, and war as well as the acceptance of social medicine as part of physicians' training. The establishment of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and origins and contribution to epidemiology of the International Epidemiological Association are discussed.
Erica Charters
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226180007
- eISBN:
- 9780226180144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226180144.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the role of disease and responses thereto during the 1759 campaigns against French-held Martinique and Guadeloupe and the 1762 campaign against Spanish-held Cuba. Contextualized ...
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This chapter examines the role of disease and responses thereto during the 1759 campaigns against French-held Martinique and Guadeloupe and the 1762 campaign against Spanish-held Cuba. Contextualized by contemporary and modern medical understanding of tropical disease, this chapter shows that officials were aware of the dangers of disease in the West Indian climate and followed the advice of medical authorities concerning hot climates. Yet little could be done to prevent high rates of morbidity and mortality, particularly as a result of yellow fever. This serves as a reminder that rates of disease are not always an accurate way to assess medical care and adaptation to foreign environments, whether physical or cultural. The chapter concludes with an examination of the reports of disease in colonial American newspapers, tracing the role that disease played in the emerging colonial public sphere and its nascent imperial frustrations. In the broader context of imperial-colonial relations, disease in West Indian campaigns demonstrates the difficulties of colonial warfare and its potential for straining relations between Britain and its colonies.Less
This chapter examines the role of disease and responses thereto during the 1759 campaigns against French-held Martinique and Guadeloupe and the 1762 campaign against Spanish-held Cuba. Contextualized by contemporary and modern medical understanding of tropical disease, this chapter shows that officials were aware of the dangers of disease in the West Indian climate and followed the advice of medical authorities concerning hot climates. Yet little could be done to prevent high rates of morbidity and mortality, particularly as a result of yellow fever. This serves as a reminder that rates of disease are not always an accurate way to assess medical care and adaptation to foreign environments, whether physical or cultural. The chapter concludes with an examination of the reports of disease in colonial American newspapers, tracing the role that disease played in the emerging colonial public sphere and its nascent imperial frustrations. In the broader context of imperial-colonial relations, disease in West Indian campaigns demonstrates the difficulties of colonial warfare and its potential for straining relations between Britain and its colonies.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in ...
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This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in Africa, as the problem of the disease intensified in the wake of the war and remained a major issue for tropical medicine researchers and doctors in the post-war period.Less
This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in Africa, as the problem of the disease intensified in the wake of the war and remained a major issue for tropical medicine researchers and doctors in the post-war period.
Juanita De Barros
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469616056
- eISBN:
- 9781469617930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469616056.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book investigates ideas and policymaking about reproduction and the size and health of populations in Britain's Caribbean colonies both before and immediately after the end of slavery, a period ...
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This book investigates ideas and policymaking about reproduction and the size and health of populations in Britain's Caribbean colonies both before and immediately after the end of slavery, a period spanning the early nineteenth century to the 1930s. The focus is on Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana, and on maternal education and infant welfare initiatives introduced by colonial policymakers, including midwife training programs. The book considers the debates about population growth in these three colonies, as well as the problem of infant mortality. It also examines how the ideas and institutions of tropical medicine influenced perceptions of Caribbean populations.Less
This book investigates ideas and policymaking about reproduction and the size and health of populations in Britain's Caribbean colonies both before and immediately after the end of slavery, a period spanning the early nineteenth century to the 1930s. The focus is on Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana, and on maternal education and infant welfare initiatives introduced by colonial policymakers, including midwife training programs. The book considers the debates about population growth in these three colonies, as well as the problem of infant mortality. It also examines how the ideas and institutions of tropical medicine influenced perceptions of Caribbean populations.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book argues that European tropical medicine experts successfully built a network of professional researchers and clinicians that helped them establish their collective authority as experts in a ...
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This book argues that European tropical medicine experts successfully built a network of professional researchers and clinicians that helped them establish their collective authority as experts in a new field of scientific inquiry. It examines the facilitation of certain kinds of medical advances and their contribution to colonial practices in Europe's African colonies. The book demonstrates that colonial health practices developed as a result both of national goals and of interventions by influential transnational actors with shared agendas.Less
This book argues that European tropical medicine experts successfully built a network of professional researchers and clinicians that helped them establish their collective authority as experts in a new field of scientific inquiry. It examines the facilitation of certain kinds of medical advances and their contribution to colonial practices in Europe's African colonies. The book demonstrates that colonial health practices developed as a result both of national goals and of interventions by influential transnational actors with shared agendas.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book explores tropical medicine as an inter-European international science and assesses the application of some of its leading scientists' ideas about how to address two major colonial health ...
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This book explores tropical medicine as an inter-European international science and assesses the application of some of its leading scientists' ideas about how to address two major colonial health problems in Africa: public health in urban colonial centers and the sleeping sickness epidemic. It focuses on a group of colonizers: what motivated them, what brought them together as a transnational community, how the colonies benefited their profession, and how their collective ideas were put into practice in specific locations.Less
This book explores tropical medicine as an inter-European international science and assesses the application of some of its leading scientists' ideas about how to address two major colonial health problems in Africa: public health in urban colonial centers and the sleeping sickness epidemic. It focuses on a group of colonizers: what motivated them, what brought them together as a transnational community, how the colonies benefited their profession, and how their collective ideas were put into practice in specific locations.
Satoshi Mizutani
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199697700
- eISBN:
- 9780191732102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697700.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter discusses the ‘imperial politics of whiteness’ in relation to both the politico-economic characteristics of British rule and the life-worlds of white bourgeois families. These two were ...
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This chapter discusses the ‘imperial politics of whiteness’ in relation to both the politico-economic characteristics of British rule and the life-worlds of white bourgeois families. These two were mutually inseparable because the quotidian lives of Britons—how, where, and with whom they lived, as well as how and where they reared their children—were of central importance to the definition and social reproduction of British racial prestige, upon which the legitimacy of the Raj ultimately depended. Among the most important sources for the discussions here are the Reports of the Select Committee on Colonization and Settlement (1858–59), which contain official debates on these questions. A range of journal and newspaper articles, as well as medical books and manuals, are also examined.Less
This chapter discusses the ‘imperial politics of whiteness’ in relation to both the politico-economic characteristics of British rule and the life-worlds of white bourgeois families. These two were mutually inseparable because the quotidian lives of Britons—how, where, and with whom they lived, as well as how and where they reared their children—were of central importance to the definition and social reproduction of British racial prestige, upon which the legitimacy of the Raj ultimately depended. Among the most important sources for the discussions here are the Reports of the Select Committee on Colonization and Settlement (1858–59), which contain official debates on these questions. A range of journal and newspaper articles, as well as medical books and manuals, are also examined.
Stephen Snelders
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526112996
- eISBN:
- 9781526128485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526112996.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The on-going adherence of the Afro-Surinamese and of new British Indian and Javanese migrants to their own folk beliefs and practices necessitated a response from Dutch colonial medicine. If modern ...
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The on-going adherence of the Afro-Surinamese and of new British Indian and Javanese migrants to their own folk beliefs and practices necessitated a response from Dutch colonial medicine. If modern leprosy politics were to succeed, some degree of cooperation and compliance from the population was necessary. Folk beliefs were not seen as a possible alternative to Western science and medicine on a conceptual level; however, Dutch colonial medicine found elements in folk beliefs useful for its own health propaganda and communication, while at the same time emphatically rejecting the folk medicine practitioners’ worldview underlying these beliefs. In this sense Dutch colonial medicine did not limit itself to the interventions from above based on biomedical knowledge that historians have found typical of ‘Imperial Tropical Medicine’, but actively sought the compliance of the population.Less
The on-going adherence of the Afro-Surinamese and of new British Indian and Javanese migrants to their own folk beliefs and practices necessitated a response from Dutch colonial medicine. If modern leprosy politics were to succeed, some degree of cooperation and compliance from the population was necessary. Folk beliefs were not seen as a possible alternative to Western science and medicine on a conceptual level; however, Dutch colonial medicine found elements in folk beliefs useful for its own health propaganda and communication, while at the same time emphatically rejecting the folk medicine practitioners’ worldview underlying these beliefs. In this sense Dutch colonial medicine did not limit itself to the interventions from above based on biomedical knowledge that historians have found typical of ‘Imperial Tropical Medicine’, but actively sought the compliance of the population.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846318290
- eISBN:
- 9781846317835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317835.008
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This book has explored the relationship between tropical medicine and colonial enclaves in India under British rule. Decolonisation within the British Empire dissolved this relationship, and ...
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This book has explored the relationship between tropical medicine and colonial enclaves in India under British rule. Decolonisation within the British Empire dissolved this relationship, and Darjeeling became an important part of the wider colonial polity and economy of northern Bengal over the nineteenth century. Darjeeling functioned as a European social enclave and seasonal administrative centre, a site for the planters of the hill area, and an aspirational social site of rejuvenation for the Bengali elites, all at the same time. The tea plantations in the Darjeeling district and in the adjoining Duars were managed mostly by European personnel and assumed a dual identity as porous enclaves. Paternalism and individualism characterised the provisions of health care for the labourers in the plantations. This chapter examines the structural changes that occurred in Darjeeling after India gained independence and their impact on the medical infrastructure of Darjeeling as well as the tea plantations.Less
This book has explored the relationship between tropical medicine and colonial enclaves in India under British rule. Decolonisation within the British Empire dissolved this relationship, and Darjeeling became an important part of the wider colonial polity and economy of northern Bengal over the nineteenth century. Darjeeling functioned as a European social enclave and seasonal administrative centre, a site for the planters of the hill area, and an aspirational social site of rejuvenation for the Bengali elites, all at the same time. The tea plantations in the Darjeeling district and in the adjoining Duars were managed mostly by European personnel and assumed a dual identity as porous enclaves. Paternalism and individualism characterised the provisions of health care for the labourers in the plantations. This chapter examines the structural changes that occurred in Darjeeling after India gained independence and their impact on the medical infrastructure of Darjeeling as well as the tea plantations.
Michitake Aso
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469637150
- eISBN:
- 9781469637174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469637150.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
Rubber plantations necessitated extensive medical studies of human biology and diseases. Researchers at the Pasteur Institute carried out numerous studies of mosquitoes and plasmodia, and to a lesser ...
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Rubber plantations necessitated extensive medical studies of human biology and diseases. Researchers at the Pasteur Institute carried out numerous studies of mosquitoes and plasmodia, and to a lesser extent other pathogens, among plantation workers. Race served as an important analytic category for these researchers even as anthropologists were beginning to question the coherence of racial categories. Chapter 4 investigates the racialized society that the architects of industrial agriculture imagined they were creating. It also discusses the interactions in Indochina between the burgeoning tropical sciences and government and transnational capital, focusing on human disease environments to examine how “rubber science” was applied to the surrounding countryside. If plantations were microcosms of the global colonial society, they were also laboratories where solutions to colonial problems were worked out. Tropical agronomy, geography, and medicine, linked by an ecological view of climates and soils, helped naturalize racial distinctions for the colonizers. Yet the colonial subjects who were the targets of these projects did not act in ways that race makers expected. While these subjects could not control the discourse of race, they could appropriate it for their own ends, and they attempted to do so before the outbreak of World War II.Less
Rubber plantations necessitated extensive medical studies of human biology and diseases. Researchers at the Pasteur Institute carried out numerous studies of mosquitoes and plasmodia, and to a lesser extent other pathogens, among plantation workers. Race served as an important analytic category for these researchers even as anthropologists were beginning to question the coherence of racial categories. Chapter 4 investigates the racialized society that the architects of industrial agriculture imagined they were creating. It also discusses the interactions in Indochina between the burgeoning tropical sciences and government and transnational capital, focusing on human disease environments to examine how “rubber science” was applied to the surrounding countryside. If plantations were microcosms of the global colonial society, they were also laboratories where solutions to colonial problems were worked out. Tropical agronomy, geography, and medicine, linked by an ecological view of climates and soils, helped naturalize racial distinctions for the colonizers. Yet the colonial subjects who were the targets of these projects did not act in ways that race makers expected. While these subjects could not control the discourse of race, they could appropriate it for their own ends, and they attempted to do so before the outbreak of World War II.
Jessica Howell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748692958
- eISBN:
- 9781474400824
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748692958.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This interdisciplinary study explores both the personal and political significance of climate in the Victorian imagination. It analyses foreboding imagery of miasma, sludge and rot in travel ...
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This interdisciplinary study explores both the personal and political significance of climate in the Victorian imagination. It analyses foreboding imagery of miasma, sludge and rot in travel narratives, speeches, private journals and medical advice tracts. Authors such as Joseph Conrad are placed in dialogue with minority writers such as Mary Seacole and Africanus Horton in order to understand their different approaches to representing white illness abroad. The project also considers postcolonial texts such as Wilson Harris’s Palace of the Peacock to demonstrate that authors continue to ‘write back’ to the legacies of colonialism by reinterpreting imagery of tropical climates.Less
This interdisciplinary study explores both the personal and political significance of climate in the Victorian imagination. It analyses foreboding imagery of miasma, sludge and rot in travel narratives, speeches, private journals and medical advice tracts. Authors such as Joseph Conrad are placed in dialogue with minority writers such as Mary Seacole and Africanus Horton in order to understand their different approaches to representing white illness abroad. The project also considers postcolonial texts such as Wilson Harris’s Palace of the Peacock to demonstrate that authors continue to ‘write back’ to the legacies of colonialism by reinterpreting imagery of tropical climates.
