Doctors and Slaves Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgment
- 1 The disease environments and epidemiology
- 2 The medical profession
- 3 African and Afro-West Indian medicine
- 4 The Guinea surgeons
- 5 Slaves and plantations
- 6 Labor, diet, and punishment
- 7 Morbidity and mortality
- 8 The problem of reproduction
- 9 Smallpox and slavery
- 10 Slave hospitals
- 11 Plantation medical practice
- 12 Slavery and medicine
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Slavery and medicine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgment
- 1 The disease environments and epidemiology
- 2 The medical profession
- 3 African and Afro-West Indian medicine
- 4 The Guinea surgeons
- 5 Slaves and plantations
- 6 Labor, diet, and punishment
- 7 Morbidity and mortality
- 8 The problem of reproduction
- 9 Smallpox and slavery
- 10 Slave hospitals
- 11 Plantation medical practice
- 12 Slavery and medicine
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the long and bitter debate on slavery, profound have been the essays on puberty, procreation, and the terms of child -bearing; registries have been dissected; figures have been heaped upon figures, returns have succeeded returns; Protectors transported across the Atlantic; learned actuaries employed on both sides; and to this day, the contest remains undecided, productive only of this unhappy result – that, to the West Indians, a drawn battle must always be defeat – to their adversaries victory.
William Burnley, 1833This final chapter first summarizes the demographic and economic history of slavery in the British West Indies. It then analyzes the demographic and economic situation and seeks to weigh the relative importance of the various factors. We investigate the practice of heroic medicine in the Sugar Colonies and assess the quality of health care supplied to the slaves. Finally we compare the demographic structure and health care systems under slavery and freedom and their chief consequences.
Slave population attrition
The primary goal of this study has been first to understand why the slave population of the British West Indies suffered a net natural decrease during the period 1680 -1834, and second to ascertain the quality of health care provided the slaves.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Doctors and SlavesA Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680–1834, pp. 321 - 342Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985