Imperial contagions : medicine, hygiene, and cultures of planning in Asia

Abstract

Imperial Contagions argues there was no straightforward shift from older enclavist models of colonial medicine to a newer emphasis on the prevention and treatment of disease among indigenous populations and European residents. It shows that colonial medicine was not at all homogeneous “on the ground” but was riven with tensions and contradictions. Indigenous elites contested and appropriated Western medical knowledge and practices for their own purposes. Colonial policies contained contradictory and cross-cutting impulses. This book challenges the belief that colonial regimes were uniformly able to regulate indigenous bodies and that colonial medicine served as a “tool of empire.”