Difference and Disease

The first title in the Global Health Histories book series (published by Cambridge University Press) is out now - Suman Seth’s ‘Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire.’ Before the nineteenth century, travellers who left Britain for the Americas, West Africa, India and elsewhere encountered a medical conundrum: why did they fall ill when they arrived, and why – if they recovered - did they never become so ill again? Suman Seth (Cornell University) explores forms of eighteenth-century medical knowledge, showing how geographical location was essential to this knowledge. In this period, debates raged over whether diseases changed in different climes. Different diseases were deemed characteristic of different races and genders, and medical practitioners were thus deeply involved in contestations over race and the legitimacy of the abolitionist cause.

We asked the author for his insights into the preparation and planning of the book. This was his enlightening response:

“I came to this project via a rather circuitous route. I published my first book in 2010, on theoretical physics in late 19th and early 20th century Germany. Given longstanding interests in science, race, colonialism, and postcolonial theory, I’d originally envisioned working on a project on the physical sciences and colonialism in the German concession at Kiautschou Bay, China, from 1897-1914. Beginning research, however, I came across material having to do with debates in Germany concerning ‘Akklimatisation’ and race. Following material on acclimatization led me backwards to the history of ‘seasoning,’ the term used before acclimatization replaced it—in medical contexts—after the 1830s and 1840s. And an interest in seasoning and race led me to the material that became this book. Within a couple of years, in other words, I had gone from being a historian of physics in Germany in the twentieth century to someone who needed to understand the history of medicine in the British Empire, in the eighteenth century. Needless to say, making that transition required the help on an enormous number of people, who were incredibly generous with their time, patience, and wisdom.”

You can find out more about ‘Difference and Disease’ via the Global Health Histories series page on the Cambridge University Press website.

The Global Health Histories series aims to publish outstanding and innovative scholarship on the history of public health, medicine and science worldwide. By studying the many ways in which the impact of ideas of health and well-being on society were measured and described in different global, international, regional, national and local contexts, books in the series will reconceptualise the nature of empire, the nation state, extra-state actors and different forms of globalization.

You can read more about upcoming titles in the series via our series announcement on the Centre for Global Health Histories news page.