‘Salt meat […] is prejudicial to the health of the troops’: the battles between doctors and the British Empire over army diet in the nineteenth-century Caribbean

Ilaria Berti

doi:10.3989/chdj.2020.019

Abstract

Nineteenth-century British and Caribbean sources show that European colonists were constantly struggling to maintain their health in a little-understood tropical climate; they engaged in frequent discussion and the exchange of advice on the preservation of their health. This article reveals that the maintenance of a specific group of temporary migrants, those in the armed forces, was a significant concern for the British authorities. It analyses medical reports and information in the contemporary press, which illustrate how heightened concerns about preservation of the army’s health led to an alternation between two different diets, one based on preserved food imported from the British homeland and the other on fresh local food.

Highlights

From the Early Modern era onwards, European empires sent medical practitioners to the newly discovered American lands
On the basis of their professional observations, these doctors were able to put forward theories on how to survive in unfamiliar tropical environments: how to adapt to the climate, and how best to resist its many unknown illnesses
The examination of medical sources and newspapers demonstrates that doctors in the service of the British government did not adhere to imperial regulations, which were based mainly on economic considerations, but instead exercised agency against government policy in attempts to modify military diet

Summary

Introduction

From the Early Modern era onwards, European empires sent medical practitioners to the newly discovered American lands. An early form of Tropical Medicine was emerging long before its codification as a specialty towards the end of the nineteenth century. This was part of a broader process in which the European powers sent cartographers, agronomists, zoologists and other scientists to extend their knowledge of conquered territories with the objective of subjugating their land and populations The specific purpose of this article is to explore how medical practitioners, posted to the Caribbean in the service of the British Empire, dealt with institutional norms and preconceptions about health and diet, and to show that different and conflicting opinions about food shared the aim of consolidating imperial power. This article sheds light on how the “banal” (Billig, 1995) topic of food is of relevance for historical research and should be inserted into a wider framework of the importance of food and economic aspects in other institutions of the past and in our contemporary era (Berti, 2016)

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Conclusion