© 2024 Art Hx: Visual and Medical Legacies of British Colonialism

Medicalized Space

Medicalized Space

How was medicine used to create meanings about people and places, and how has this affected the production of medical knowledge from which we still draw on today? Medicalized Space focuses on the ways medicine as a field of knowledge was used to interpret, categorize, and circulate meanings about humans and their environments.

A colored aquatint shows a scythe's blade curved in the shape of a semicircle. Underneath the blade is a skeletal beast-like figure holding an hourglass labeled "Yellow Fever" with diseased bodies labeled "Sore Throat" and "Dry Gripes" at its left and right. Dark insects and snakes populate the semicircle's dark background. Arched above are a number of seated, reclining, and standing white colonists. A winged elderly figure hovers above in the sky holding a bottle of opium, and the sun and zodiac symbols for cancer and leo are behind him. The work is labeled "The Torrid Zone" above the print, and below "Or, the Blessings of Jamaica."

Abraham James. The Torrid Zone, or, Blessings of Jamaica (A parody astrological diagram showing opposing aspects of the life of settlers in Jamaica: langorous noons and the hells of yellow fever). October 1, 1800. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

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Medicalized Space: An Introduction
Opium Factory at Patna: The Stacking Room
What’s So Medical About the Ether Dome?

© 2022 Art Hx: Visual and Medical Legacies of British Colonialism

Art Hx: Visual and Medical Legacies of British Colonialism