Materials and medicine : trade, conquest and therapeutics in the eighteenth century

Medicine was transformed in the eighteenth century. Aligning the trajectories of intellectual and material wealth, this book uncovers how medicine acquired a new materialism as well as new materials in the context of global commerce and warfare. It studies the expansion of medicine as it acquired new materials and methods in an age of discovery and shows how eighteenth-century therapeutics encapsulates the intellectual and material resources of conquest. Bringing together a wide range of sources, the book argues that the intellectual developments in European medicine were inextricably linked to histories of conquest, colonisation and the establishment of colonial institutions. Medicine in the eighteenth-century colonies was shaped by the two main products of European mercantilism: minerals and spices. Forts and hospitals were often established as the first signs of British settlement in enemy territories, like the one in Navy Island. The shifting fortunes on the Coromandel Coast over the eighteenth century saw the decline of traditional ports like Masulipatnam and the emergence of Madras as the centre of British trade. The book also explores the emergence of materia medica and medical botany at confluence of the intellectual, spiritual and material quests. Three different forms of medical knowledge acquired by the British in the colonies: plants (columba roots and Swietenia febrifuga), natural objects and indigenous medical preparations (Tanjore pills). The book examines the texts, plants, minerals, colonial hospitals, dispensatories and the works of surgeons, missionaries and travellers to demonstrate that these were shaped by the material constitution of eighteenth century European colonialism. Medicine was transformed in the eighteenth century. Aligning the trajectories of intellectual and material wealth, this book uncovers how medicine acquired a new materialism as well as new materials in the context of global commerce and warfare. Bringing together a wide range of sources, this book argues that the intellectual developments in European medicine were inextricably linked to histories of conquest, colonization and the establishment of colonial institutions. This is the first book to trace the links between colonialism and medicine on such a geographical and conceptual scale. Chakrabarti examines the texts, plants, minerals, colonial hospitals, dispensatories and the works of surgeons, missionaries and travellers to demonstrate that these were shaped by the material constitution of eighteenth century European colonialism. This book will appeal to experts and students in histories of medicine, science, and imperialism as well as south Asian and Caribbean history. Front matter Dedication Contents Lists of tables and figures Glossary Acknowledgements General editor's introduction Introduction Trade and treatment: medicine in the colonies in the Age of Commerce War, settlement and medicine in the West Indies Terrains, territories and treatment in the Coromandel Materials and materia medica in India Medical botany in Jamaican plantations Therapeutic trajectories in the age of empire Colonialism and the hinterlands of science Bibliography Index Materials and medicine is ambitious in its scope and richly detailed with a diverse range of cases, from the bazaars of India to the medicinal waters of Jamaica, that illustrate Chakrabarti's larger argument. He significantly advances our understanding of the material realities of eighteenth-century British colonial medicine