Botanical and Medical Networks: Madras through the Collections of Two EIC Surgeons

  • Anna Winterbottom
Chapter
Part of the Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series book series (CIPCSS)

Abstract

This chapter takes a journey around Madras and connected places, as the settlement rose to prominence in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. On the way, we will look into some of the public and private spaces in which medicine was prepared and practised and medicinal plants were grown, collected, labelled, and sold or presented as gifts to patrons, local, and international. These include the courts of the rulers of Golconda and the nawabs of Arcot; the army camps of the EIC and the Mughal and Maratha armies; the hospital; the bazaars and apothecaries’ shops; the physic gardens that dotted the city; and the ships that carried drugs and ideas to and from the town. Based on this survey of the medical landscape and political geography, I will argue that the practice of medicine was crucial to diplomatic relations in the region. I will show how networks of doctors operated in the negotiation of the EIC’s settlement in Madras with the new rulers of Arcot after the disastrous war of the 1680s launched by the EIC against the Mughal Empire. Several volumes of herbarium specimens, along with printed and manuscript descriptions relating to them, collected by two EIC surgeons, provide a glimpse into the range of materia medica that were known and deployed by the doctors and their Tamil-and Telugu-speaking counterparts and collaborators.

Keywords

Natural History Museum Regional Trade Medical Network East India Company European Capital 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Anna Winterbottom 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Anna Winterbottom
    • 1
  1. 1.University of SussexUK

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