Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India

In this innovative analysis of medicine and disease in colonial India, David Arnold explores the vital role of the state in medical and public health activities, arguing that Western medicine became a critical battleground between the colonized and the colonizers.

Focusing on three major epidemic diseases—smallpox, cholera, and plague—Arnold analyzes the impact of medical interventionism. He demonstrates that Western medicine as practiced in India was not simply transferred from West to East...