Medicine and Empire in Goa from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century : From Plant Knowledge to Colonial Biopolitics

This edited volume investigates the shaping, suppression, and circulation of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge in colonial Goa, situating these processes within the region’s political, religious, and commercial networks.

This edited volume investigates the shaping, suppression, and circulation of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge in colonial Goa, situating these processes within the region’s political, religious, and commercial networks. Spanning from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, the chapters trace developments from Garcia de Orta’s engagement with local plant-based knowledge to the compilation of herbaria used as medical vademecums across Jesuit global networks. The collection also explores the hybrid medical practices in eighteenth century Goan hospitals, the institutionalisation of medical education, and the contested legitimacy of healing practices during epidemics such as smallpox, plague, and cholera in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than framing colonial medicine as a binary between European and Asian systems under a sanitary regime, the contributors draw on earlier historical layers to illuminate the complexities of medical knowledge production in Goa.