Medicine and Empire, 1600-1960

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Spanning three centuries and covering British, French and Spanish imperial histories in Africa, Asia and America, this book demonstrates that the history of medicine is inseparable from the history of imperialism. Beginning in the seventeenth century, medicine became modern at the same time as it was becoming colonial. The increasing influence of natural history on early modern medicine, the growth of European drug markets, the rise of surgeons in status, developments in ideas of sanitation and public health, the expansion of modern quarantine systems and, finally, the emergence of Germ theory and global vaccination campaigns – all these major developments in European medicine had a colonial counterpart and were closely intertwined with European overseas activities. Drawing on recent scholarship and primary texts, this book narrates a mutually constitutive history in which medicine was both a ‘tool’ and a product of imperialism. The analysis presented in this volume thus provides an original insight into the deep historical roots of the problems that plague global health today.