A new book addresses the role that enslaved people played in the birth of epidemiology
Credit: Private Collection/AF Fotografie/Alamy“History performs a social task,” wrote George Rosen in his classic 1958 book. “It may be regarded as the collective memory of the human group and for good or evil helps to mold its collective consciousness.” Rosen’s book grounded modern US public health in the experiences of European immigrants in urban areas. It scarcely mentioned ill health among enslaved or formerly enslaved people — but his words were prescient.
Downs’s first goal is to “make visible” how epidemiological thinking emerged from imperial conquest and the exploitation of enslaved people. He delves into archival records to recount how Western medical men — they were nearly always men — drew on the transatlantic slave trade. These researchers studied the health consequences of enslavement and thence began to understand disease transmission. For example, the study of ventilation emerged from the holds of slave ships and crowded prison cells.
To bring a human dimension absent from the historical record, Downs offers fictionalized accounts. The book begins by recounting details of an enslaved man on board a ship. Originally from “Ghana”, he was sold in “revenge” when accused of “witchcraft” after quarrelling with a “chief”. In my view, these clichés detract from the purpose of imagining the real people who were subjected to brutality.also adds to better-known histories.
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