This edited volume investigates the shaping, suppression, and circulation of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge in colonial Goa, situating these processes within the region's political, religious, and commercial networks. Spanning from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, the chapters trace developments from Garcia de Orta's engagement with local plant-based knowledge to the compilation of herbaria used as medical vademecums across Jesuit global networks. The collection also explores the hybrid medical practices in eighteenth century Goan hospitals, the institutionalisation of medical education, and the contested legitimacy of healing practices during epidemics such as smallpox, plague, and cholera in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than framing colonial medicine as a binary between European and Asian systems under a sanitary regime, the contributors draw on earlier historical layers to illuminate the complexities of medical knowledge production in Goa.

Presents a multi-disciplinary perspective on the production, use, and circulation of medical knowledge in colonial Goa Breaks with traditional studies on medicine and empire by exploring long-term colonial interactions Emphasises the lived experience of negotiating medical care under empire

Autorentext

Cristiana Bastos is Professor of Anthropology in the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Her research interests include health, colonialism, plants, plantation societies, labour, and race.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Medicine and Empire in Goa: An Introduction.- Chapter 2. Asian Fruits and Vegetables: The Conversations of Orta and Ruano.- Chapter 3. Inventorying Materia Medica in 16th-Century Portuguese India.- Chapter 4. Missionary Orders and the Production of European Medicine in the Tropics: Árvore da Vida and Colecção
de Receitas e Segredos.- Chapter 5. Indigenous Indian Healing Techniques in the Portuguese Colonial Medical Institutions of Goa, Damão, and Diu (16801830).- Chapter 6. Beyond Cure, Care and Conversion: Materialities and Micropolitics of the Hospital.- Chapter 7. Tensions of Medicine and Empire: 19th Century Transitions in Public Health and Medical Teaching in Goa.- Chapter 8. Secrets, Orientalism and Medical Botany in Goa, c. 18401930.- Chapter 9. The Lancet Against the Goddess: Smallpox Vaccine and Variolation in Goa.- Chapter 10. Facing Cholera: Contested Etiologies, Perceived Vulnerabilities.- Chapter 11. The Plague: Rats, Fears and Political Borders.- Chapter 12. Public Health, Colonial Contexts and Local Actors in the Twentieth Century: The Control of Hansen's Disease in Portuguese India.