Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (2017)
Schiebinger, Londa L. (Author)
Stanford University Press
Physical Details: 256
Language: English
In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. The history of medicine bristles with attempts to find new and miraculous remedies, to work with and against nature to restore humans to health and well-being. In this book, Londa Schiebinger examines medicine and human experimentation in the Atlantic World, exploring the circulation of people, disease, plants, and knowledge between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. She traces the development of a colonial medical complex from the 1760s, when a robust experimental culture emerged in the British and French West Indies, to the early 1800s, when debates raged about banning the slave trade and, eventually, slavery itself. Massive mortality among enslaved Africans and European planters, soldiers, and sailors fueled the search for new healing techniques. Amerindian, African, and European knowledges competed to cure diseases emerging from the collision of peoples on newly established, often poorly supplied, plantations. But not all knowledge was equal. Highlighting the violence and fear endemic to colonial struggles, Schiebinger explores aspects of African medicine that were not put to the test, such as Obeah and vodou. This book analyzes how and why specific knowledges were blocked, discredited, or held secret.
...MoreReview Rana Hogarth (2019) Review of "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 120-122).
Review Justin Roberts (2018) Review of "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Journal of Early Modern History (pp. 561-563).
Review Anatole Tchikine (2019) Review of "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Agricultural History (pp. 197-199).
Review Susan Scott Parrish (2018) Review of "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 513-515).
Essay Review Sasha Turner (2018) Slavery and the Production, Circulation and Practice of Medicine. Social History of Medicine (pp. 870-876).
Essay Review Jim Endersby (2018) Acknowledging Limits. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 801-805).
Review Barbara Orland (2018) Review of "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp. 200-201).
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