Synopses & Reviews
An examination of medicine's role in the consolidation of colonial rule in the Indian Raj.
Review
"A scholarly, extensively researched, well-annotated, and amply referenced work, and a valuable resource." Choice
Review
"Public Health in British India is a commendable work marked by its substantial scholarly apparatus -- fifty pages of notes, extensive utilization of primary sources, several graphs, and illustrations....this is a work of solid scholarship and should spawn historiographic research in the British colonial context. It is highly recommended for scholars and students of the Indian colonial history of preventive medicine." The Annals of the American Academy
Review
"[Harrison's] arguments are well made and well supported by an impressive range of sources from contemporary medical journals to memoirs...The result is a solid contribution to the history of health and of imperialism." Histoire sociale
Synopsis
The first major study of public health in British India that covers many previously unresearched areas such as European attitudes towards India; the fate of public health under Indian control; and the effects of quarantine on colonial trade and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Synopsis
Emphasizing the active role of the indigenous population, this first major study differs significantly from other works by covering previously unresearched areas such as European attitudes toward India and their reflections in medical literature as well as medical policy.
Table of Contents
Preface; Introduction; 1. The Indian medical service; 2. Tropical hygiene: disease theory and prevention in nineteenth-century India; 3. The foundations of public health in India: crisis and constraint; 4. Cholera theory and sanitary policy; 5. Quarantine, pilgrimage, and colonial trade: India 1866-1900; 6. Professional visions and political realities, 1896-1914; 7. Public health and local self-government; 8. The politics of health in Calcutta, 1876-1899; Conclusion.