Materials and Medicine

Pratik Chakrabarti is Wellcome Lecturer in the History of Modern Medicine at the University of Kent

• GlossaryAcknowledgmentIntroduction1. Trade and treatment: Medicine in the colonies in the age of commerce 2. War, settlement and medicine in the West Indies3. Terrains, territories and treatment in the Coromandel4. Materials and materia medica in India5. Medical botany in Jamaican plantations6. Therapeutic trajectories in the age of empire7. Colonialism and the hinterlands of scienceBibliography

Chakrabarti has produced a fascinating and highly readable book, full of unique information and detailed, thoughtful analysis. It will be a catalyst for new comparative research, and it is an essential text for students of colonial medicine, Enlightenment-era science, global trade, and imperialism, as well as specialists in Caribbean and South Asian history.‘This thoughtful comparative study of the distinct medical experiences of India and the West Indies illuminates a wide range of intellectual and cultural changes. It is excellent news that Manchester University Press has now brought out a paperback edition.’James Robertson, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaican Historical Review, Vol. 27