Medicine and Empire (1600-1960)

The history of modern medicine is inseparable from the history of imperialism. Medicine and Empire provides an introduction to this shared history – spanning three centuries and covering British, French and Spanish imperial histories in Africa, Asia and America.

Exploring the major developments in European medicine from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth century, Pratik Chakrabarti shows that the major developments in European medicine had a colonial counterpart and were closely intertwined with European activities overseas:

• the increasing influence of natural history on medicine
• the growth of European drug markets
• the rise of surgeons in status
• ideas of race and racism
• advancements in sanitation and public health
• the expansion of the modern quarantine system
• the emergence of Germ theory and global vaccination campaigns.

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, and provides an original, accessible insight into the deep historical roots of the problems that plague global health today.