Medicine and International Relations in the Caribbean

About the Book

Medicine has long framed race relations in the Caribbean-that basin where African and European cultures have met from the beginning of the Colonial Period to the twentieth century. Whether Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum and President of the Royal Society of London, who as a physician wrote about African medical beliefs and practices, or Dr. Leonard Wood, military physician who served as military governor to Cuba, medicine and its practitioners have played a key role in the perception of the African Other. The book is a collection of essays treating the subject from various points of views. While it may perhaps not surprise the reader that colonial physicians often failed to acknowledge the same failings in their own Western medicine as that criticized of African practices, the medical view found later in the period lacked that biting racism of an earlier era.

About the Author

Rodrigo Fernós teaches at the University of Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras), and is Director of ICTAL, the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología en América Latina (Institute of Science and Technology in Latin America). He studied at Brandeis University, the University of Texas (Austin), and the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). His books include Science Still Born (2003) and En busca del fénix: la ciencia y su historia en América Latina (forthcoming). For more information on the author or the topic, please consult www.ictal.org.