Malarial Subjects: Empire, Medicine and Nonhumans in British India, 1820

350 Pages·2017·17.85 MB·English

by  Rohan Deb Roy

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Malarial Subjects
Malaria was considered one of the most widespread disease-causing
entities in the nineteenth century. It was associated with a variety of
frailtiesfarbeyondfevers,rangingfromidiocytoimpotence.Andyet,
itwasnotaself-containedcategory.Thereconsolidationofmalariaasa
diagnosticcategoryduringthisperiodhappenedwithinawidercontext
inwhichcinchonaplantsandtheirmostvaluableextract,quinine,were
reinforcedasobjectsofnaturalknowledgeandsocialcontrol.InIndia,
theexigenciesandapparatusesofBritishimperialruleoccasionedthe
closeinteractionsbetweenthesehistories.Intheprocess,Britishimpe-
rialrulebecameentangledwithanetworkofnonhumansthatincluded,
apart from cinchona plants and the drug quinine, a range of objects
describedasmalarial,aswellasmosquitoes.MalarialSubjectsexplores
thishistoryoftheco-constitutionofacureanddisease,ofBritishcolo-
nial rule and nonhumans, and of science, medicine and empire. This
titleisalsoavailableasOpenAccess.
rohan deb roy isLecturerinSouthAsianHistoryattheUniversity
ofReading.HereceivedhisPhDfromUniversityCollegeLondon,and
has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Centre for Studies in Social
Sciences Calcutta, at the University of Cambridge, and at the Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He has been a
Barnard-ColumbiaWeissInternationalVisitingScholarintheHistory
ofScience.
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SCIENCEINHISTORY
SeriesEditors
SimonJ.Schaffer,UniversityofCambridge
JamesA.Secord,UniversityofCambridge
Science in History is a major series of ambitious books on the history of the
sciences from the mid-eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century,
highlighting work that interprets the sciences from perspectives drawn from
across the discipline of history. The focus on the major epoch of global
economic, industrial and social transformations is intended to encourage the
use of sophisticated historical models to make sense of the ways in which the
scienceshavedevelopedandchanged.Theseriesencouragestheexplorationof
a wide range of scientific traditions and the interrelations between them.
It particularly welcomes work that takes seriously the material practices of the
sciencesandisbroadingeographicalscope.
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Malarial Subjects
Empire, Medicine and Nonhumans in
British India, 1820–1909
Rohan Deb Roy
UniversityofReading
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DOI:10.1017/9781316771617
(cid:2)C RohanDebRoy2017
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For Joyasree and Amitabha Deb Roy
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Contents
ListofIllustrations pageviii
Acknowledgements xi
Abbreviations xiv
Introduction:SideEffectsofEmpire 1
1 ‘FairestofPeruvianMaids’:PlantingCinchonasin
BritishIndia 17
2 ‘AnImponderablePoison’:ShiftingGeographiesofa
DiagnosticCategory 71
3 ‘ACinchonaDisease’:MakingBurdwanFever 120
4 ‘BeatingAbouttheBush’:ManufacturingQuinineina
ColonialFactory 156
5 Of‘LossesGladlyBorne’:FeedingQuinine,Warring
Mosquitoes 216
6 Epilogue:Empire,MedicineandNonhumans 273
Bibliography 304
Index 324
vii
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Illustrations
1.1 Photographofabottleofquininebearingthelabel
HowardsandSons,c.1860–1910 page27
1.2 TitlepageofJohnEliotHoward’sTheQuinologyoftheEast
IndianPlantations,firstpublishedin1869 28
1.3 OilpaintingofPelletierandCaventoudiscoveringquinine
byErnestBoard,c.1910–1920 32
1.4 Wood-engravingdescribingthegatheringanddryingof
cinchonabarkinaPeruvianforest,c.1867 38
1.5 PhotographofacinchonanurseryatMunsonginBritish
Sikkim 51
1.6 PhotographofacinchonatreeinBritishCeylon,1882 53
1.7 AsampleofCinchonaPahudianafromJavacultivatedin
Nilgiris,1877 58
1.8 AsampleofCinchonaOfficinalisfromMadrascultivatedin
Java 59
1.9 Wood-engravingoftheplantingofthefirstcinchonatreein
anewplantationintheNilgiris 63
1.10 Wood-engravingshowingBalmadie’sCinchonaPlantation
NearDolcamund,MadrasPresidency,1872 64
1.11 Photographoflocalinhabitantslabouringinacinchona
plantationinBritishCeylon,c.1880–1896 65
1.12 PhotographoflocalinhabitantslabouringatMunsong
cinchonaplantationsinBritishSikkim 66
2.1 ImageofAlbarellodrugjarusedforcinchonabark,Spain,
c.1731–1770 92
2.2 Sketchwiththenote‘GleanersofthePontineMarshes.
Thesepeoplesufferedfrommalariawhenworkingonthe
Marshes’,1837 93
2.3 Lithographof‘Agroupofpeopleadriftinaboat,perhaps
sufferingfrommalaria’,1850 94
viii
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