The yellow demon of fever
fighting disease in the nineteenth-century transatlantic slave trade
Bände/Inhalt:
- Introduction - 1. "A beautiful spot for a grave": prophylaxis and prevention in the slave-trade contact zones - 2. The blood of thousands: slave traders and the fight against disease in the age of abolition - 3. Cruising for slaves and boating up rivers: anti-slave trade patrols and the fight against disease across the Atlantic - 4. "Such an asylum of wretchedness": anti-slave trade reception centers, hospitals, and cemeteries - 5. A shared struggle: cooperation, learning, and knowledge exchange in the Atlantic world
- A pathbreaking history of how participants in the slave trade influenced the growth and dissemination of medical knowledge. As the slave trade brought Europeans, Africans, and Americans into contact, diseases were traded along with human lives. Manuel Barcia examines the battle waged against disease, where traders fought against loss of profits while enslaved Africans fought for survival. Although efforts to control disease and stop epidemics from spreading brought little success, the medical knowledge generated by people on both sides of the conflict contributed to momentous change in the medical cultures of the Atlantic world.