The Global Politics of Medical Reform in Britain and Jamaica in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Summary Between 1826 and 1843, the medical practitioners of Jamaica engaged in a long and fraught campaign to create a College of Physicians and Surgeons. This campaign linked the island with global processes of medical and political reform, especially in Britain, and numerous studies have revealed the political barriers that faced efforts to reshape medical practices in this period. Yet, the metropole was also in a continuous dialogue with its colonial periphery. Existing work has looked at what this dialogue meant for the circulation of medical theories and practices, but equally important was the transmission of medical institutions, which provided structures for their development and application. The campaign in Jamaica offers an important case study of the complex process by which medical institutions spread in this period and reveals both the imperial aspects of medical and social reform in Jamaica and the colonial aspects of medical reform in Britain.