Denis, Adrián López (Author)
University of California, Los Angeles
Moya, Jose C.
Edition Details: Advisor: Moya, Jose C.
Physical Details: 256 pp.
Language: English
All throughout the nineteenth century, Cuba had more licensed doctors and surgeons per capita that almost any other country in the world. This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of such an extraordinary level of professional medical assistance. I argue that the island managed to attract many foreign practitioners for three major reasons: It enjoyed high levels of urbanization, it was a very militarized society, and it had a very dynamic economy based on plantation slavery. The privileged position of the island within the Atlantic circuits of trade cemented the professional development of its medical community. Using a series of analytical vignettes centered on the work of specific practitioners, I discuss the role of transatlantic networks in the production of scientific knowledge. Because one of the main objectives of this study is to rethink the relationship between colonialism and modernization, I pay close attention to the ways in which Creole elites and Spanish bureaucrats navigate through the administrative labyrinth of the empire. Diseases are discussed both as biological phenomena shaping the demographic and epidemiological landscape of the island and as cultural artifacts with multiple political dimensions. From that dual perspective, I explore the connections between slavery and pathology as perceived by nineteenth century healers, incorporating into my interpretation some useful insights from recent developments in the field of historical epidemiology. In an attempt to map the transatlantic circulation of medical knowledge, some pathological entities like slave nostalgia or Catalonian hypochondria are discussed as pure intellectual constructions. Other diseases, like smallpox and yellow fever, are understood as immunological markers of identity upon which the Creole elites built their own fantasies of racial superiority. A detailed analysis of the official responses to a cholera epidemic that plagued the western side of Cuba during the 1830s allows me to introduce other political dimensions into the picture. Ultimately, my goal is to explore the historiographic implications of recasting scientific medicine as an Atlantic rather than a European invention.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/01 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3295782.
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