Book ID: CBB771709821

Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire (2018)

unapi

Seth, Suman (Author)


Cambridge University Press


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 336 pp.
Language: English

Before the nineteenth century, travellers who left Britain for the Americas, West Africa, India and elsewhere encountered a medical conundrum: why did they fall ill when they arrived, and why - if they recovered - did they never become so ill again? The widely accepted answer was that the newcomers needed to become 'seasoned to the climate'. Suman Seth explores forms of eighteenth-century medical knowledge, including conceptions of seasoning, showing how geographical location was essential to this knowledge and helped to define relationships between Britain and her far-flung colonies. In this period, debates raged between medical practitioners over whether diseases changed in different climes. Different diseases were deemed characteristic of different races and genders, and medical practitioners were thus deeply involved in contestations over race and the legitimacy of the abolitionist cause. In this innovative and engaging history, Seth offers dramatically new ways to understand the mutual shaping of medicine, race, and empire.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Ezelle Sanford III (2021) Review of "Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840". Gender and History (pp. 822-833). unapi

Review Katherine Johnston (2021) Review of "Military Medicine and the Making of Race: Life and Death in the West India Regiments, 1795-1874". American Historical Review (pp. 1678-1680). unapi

Review Harold J. Cook (2019) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Journal of Interdisciplinary History (pp. 274-276). unapi

Review Lundy Braun (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 101221). unapi

Review Suman Seth (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 101218). unapi

Review Pablo F. Gómez (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 101220). unapi

Review Kevin Siena (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 101219). unapi

Review Pratik Chakrabarti (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 572-573). unapi

Review Jonathan Marks (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 400-401). unapi

Review Karol Kovalovich Weaver (2019) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 275-277). unapi

Review Graeme Gooday (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 112-114). unapi

Review Chelsea Berry (2020) Review of "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 109-112). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB771709821/

Similar Citations

Book Stuart Anderson; (2021)
Pharmacy and Professionalization in the British Empire, 1780-1970 (/isis/citation/CBB300441532/)

Book Booker, John; (2007)
Maritime Quarantine: The British Experience, c.1650--1900 (/isis/citation/CBB001033018/)

Book Mr Anthony C. Cartwright; (2015)
The British Pharmacopoeia, 1864 to 2014: Medicines, International Standards and the State (/isis/citation/CBB390699552/)

Book Douglas Haynes; (2017)
Fit to Practice: Empire, Race, Gender, and the Making of British Medicine, 1850-1980 (/isis/citation/CBB455641254/)

Book JEREMY BLACK; (2017)
Geographies of an Imperial Power: The British World, 1688–1815 (/isis/citation/CBB933331653/)

Book Foxhall, Katherine; (2012)
Health, Medicine, and the Sea: Australian Voyages, c.1815--60 (/isis/citation/CBB001550433/)

Article Low, Michael Christopher; (2008)
Empire and the Hajj: Pilgrims, Plagues, and Pan-Islam under British Surveillance, 1865--1908 (/isis/citation/CBB001031142/)

Article Murphy, Kathleen S.; (2013)
Collecting Slave Traders: James Petiver, Natural History, and the British Slave Trade (/isis/citation/CBB001320636/)

Thesis Stuhl, Andrew; (2013)
Empires on Ice: Science, Nature, and the Making of the Arctic (/isis/citation/CBB001567488/)

Article Burnard, Trevor; Follett, Richard; (2012)
Caribbean Slavery, British Anti-Slavery, and the Cultural Politics of Venereal Disease (/isis/citation/CBB001212674/)

Book Fields, Sherry; (2008)
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (/isis/citation/CBB001023338/)

Thesis Dawn Kaczmar; (2021)
Disability and Race in British Literature, 1580-1833 (/isis/citation/CBB068831065/)

Book Wrigley, Richard; Revill, George; (2000)
Pathologies of Travel (/isis/citation/CBB000110604/)

Book Clare Hickman; (2021)
The Doctor's Garden: Medicine, Science, and Horticulture in Britain (/isis/citation/CBB316747000/)

Book Hudson, Geoffrey L.; (2007)
British Military and Naval Medicine, 1600--1830 (/isis/citation/CBB000951553/)

Authors & Contributors
Dawn Kaczmar
Mr Anthony C. Cartwright
Charters, Erica
Wrigley, Richard
Stuhl, Andrew
Schoenfeldt, Michael C.
Concepts
Imperialism
Medicine
Great Britain, colonies
Disease and diseases
Travel; exploration
Race
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
17th century
20th century
21st century
16th century
Places
Great Britain
India
Australia
Europe
Arctic regions
West Indies
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment