Book ID: CBB332451344

Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910 (2016)

unapi

Zeheter, Michael (Author)


University of Pittsburgh Press


Publication Date: 2016
Physical Details: 340 pages
Language: English

Throughout the nineteenth century, cholera was a global scourge against human populations. Practitioners had little success in mitigating the symptoms of the disease, and its causes were bitterly disputed. What experts did agree on was that the environment played a crucial role in the sites where outbreaks occurred. In this book, Michael Zeheter offers a probing case study of the environmental changes made to fight cholera in two markedly different British colonies: Madras in India and Quebec City in Canada. The colonial state in Quebec aimed to emulate British precedent and develop similar institutions that allowed authorities to prevent cholera by imposing quarantines and controlling the disease through comprehensive change to the urban environment and sanitary improvements. In Madras, however, the provincial government sought to exploit the colony for profit and was reluctant to commit its resources to measures against cholera that would alienate the city’s inhabitants. It was only in 1857, after concern rose in Britain over the health of its troops in India, that a civilizing mission of sanitary improvement was begun. As Zeheter shows, complex political and economic factors came to bear on the reshaping of each colony's environment and the urgency placed on disease control.

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Reviewed By

Review Christoph Gradmann (2017) Review of "A History of Global Health: Interventions Into the Lives of Other Peoples". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 101-105). unapi

Review George Dehner (July 2017) Review of "Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910". Environmental History (pp. 569-571). unapi

Review Erich Weidenhammer (2018) Review of "Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910". Social History of Medicine (pp. 182-184). unapi

Review David McLean (2018) Review of "Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910". Social History of Medicine (pp. 181-182). unapi

Review Anne Hardy (2016) Review of "Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 729-730). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB332451344/

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Authors & Contributors
Ismail, Shehab
Ashraf Wani, Mohd
Bhat, Rouf Ahmad
Rahaman, Maidul
William J. Glover
Sehrawat, Samiksha
Concepts
Great Britain, colonies
Colonialism
Medicine
Public health
Cholera
Science and government
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
Enlightenment
20th century
17th century
Places
India
Middle and Near East
Cairo (Egypt)
Calcutta (India)
Istanbul (Turkey)
Nigeria
Institutions
East India Company (English)
British East India Company
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