Synopses & Reviews
This unique book is a history of health, disease and its prevention in Malaya under colonial rule. With insight and clarity, it explores the relationships among biology, environment, population and the structures of the state. The book emphasizes the role of medicine in legitimizing colonialism and shows that the ill health of populations was related to the political and social climate. The book integrates history, medical and social theory to offer a compelling account of disease and changing health status under colonialism.
Review
"...Manderson's book is a well-written and judicious account of health conditions and concerns in Malaya under British colonialism." Pamela Sodhy, Crossroads
Synopsis
This is a history of health and disease in Malaya from colonisation to World War II. It emphasises the role of medicine in maintaining colonialism, linking the ill-health in regions to the various political climates. It integrates social and material history, epidemiology and demography, politics, feminism and postcolonialism.
Synopsis
This unique book is a history of health and disease in Malaya from colonisation to the outbreak of World War II - a period marked by economic expansion and rapid population growth. Drawing on the contrasting environments created by colonisation, the book emphasises the role of medicine in legitimating colonial presence and shows that the ill-health of individual populations was related to the political climate. The book integrates social and material history, epidemiology and demography, and theories of political economy, feminism and postcolonialism.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: imposing the Empire; 2. State statistics and corporeal reality: problems of epidemiology and evidence; 3. Biology, medical ideas and the social context of illness; 4. Public health and the pathogenic city; 5. Sickness and the world of work: the men on the estates; 6. Brothel politics and the bodies of women; 7. Domestic lives: reproduction, the mother and the child; 8. Conclusion: the moral logic of colonial medicine.