Londa Schiebinger (Stanford): "Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World"

Ort: Hauptgebäude der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Hörsaal M 114

Zeit: Mittwoch, 22. November 2017, 18 c.t. - 20 Uhr

Ankündigung:

In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. The history of medicine bristles with attempts to find new and miraculous remedies, to work with and against nature to restore humans to health and well-being. Eighteenth-century physicians in both Europe and its colonies developed new standards for experimentation with new medicines. Since antiquity, physicians and healers of all sorts have tried new and untested cures in the regular care and management of patients. Populations of slaves, concentrated on New World plantations, might seem a boon to European physicians. Here was a captive and controllable group available for experimentation – an ample supply of compliant bodies. This talk, drawing from Prof. Schiebinger's recently published book (Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, Stanford UP, July 2017) explores these experiments and also the ethical brakes that kept physicians' testing in check. The West Indies served as a 'centre of calculation' where knowledge was created to cure new and persistent disease produced in the collision of peoples on newly established, often poorly supplied, plantations. Doctors and healers – of all types – in the West Indies culled valuable bits from these rich traditions to create new and, occasionally, effective cures.