Medicine and Empire

The history of modern medicine is inseparable from the history of imperialism. <i>Medicine and Empire</i> provides an introduction to this shared history - spanning three centuries and covering British French and Spanish imperial histories in Africa Asia and America.<br/><br/>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: <br/><br/>- The increasing influence of natural history on medicine<br/>- The growth of European drug markets<br/>- The rise of surgeons in status<br/>- Ideas of race and racism<br/>- Advancements in sanitation and public health<br/>- The expansion of the modern quarantine system<br/>- The emergence of Germ theory and global vaccination campaigns<br/><br/>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.