Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0232
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0232
Introduction
Disease has played a major role in the interaction between Europeans and indigenous people in the Atlantic world, often in the context of war (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Disease in the Atlantic World”). Given that more troops died from disease than from combat during the early modern period, and that the environment of the Atlantic world exacerbated the problem of disease, historians have tended to follow contemporaries’ emphasis on disease rather than surgery or injuries. Whether from extended transatlantic voyages that gave rise to scurvy, greater distances and foreign territory that complicated supply systems, or from the virulent disease environments of the West Indies and African coast, war in the Atlantic world was accompanied by high rates of disease among European troops. Historians have analyzed responses to such challenges—logistical flexibility, scientific research, and the acquisition of indigenous medical knowledge—to gauge European adaptation to foreign environments. Similar to histories of science (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “History of Science”), early histories of medicine and medical care during war tend to stress poor provisions and a lack of knowledge. But, just as historians of science recast colonies as sites of scientific innovation, so historians of medicine identify military medicine and colonial warfare as encouraging new forms of medicine. The idea that warfare in the Atlantic world spurred medical innovation challenges an older model of understanding European medicine, one that portrayed a diffusion of European medical and military knowledge into colonial military theaters. Instead, scholars of military medicine see European medical knowledge and practice shaped in these colonial theaters through the experience of local conditions, as well as by local peoples and their military and medical practices (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Warfare”). Given the paucity of sources on medicine and disease among indigenous peoples, and Europeans’ preoccupation with health and disease as both a strategic and moral imperative, the topic is generally Eurocentric: there is a focus on developments in European or Western medicine, and on responses to disease among Europeans in colonial settings, as the specialty of tropical medicine demonstrates. For details on European disease among African and American Indian populations, see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Disease in the Atlantic World”. Likewise, given the preoccupation with military and naval manpower, most works pay little attention to the health of children or women.
Reference Works
Wide-ranging, often multivolume reference works provide basic information on medicine and medical personnel stationed in Europe and overseas. These are organized by nation, following chronological national military histories (for Spain, see Massons 1994; for Britain see Cantlie 1974), often treating navies and armies separately (for Britain’s navy, see Keevil, et al. 1957–1963; for Portugal’s navy, see Menses 1987; for Portuguese military hospitals, see Borges 2009). As a result, these tend to follow a traditional Whiggish overview of the progress of medicine within national armed forces, highlighting poor conditions and medical care during the early modern period, thus identifying progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. Collections of individual medical men, such as Brisou and Sardet 2010, provide useful references of personnel and their individual accomplishments.
Borges, Augusto Moutinho. Reais Hospitais Militares em Portugal (1640–1834). Coimbra, Portugal: University of Coimbra, 2009.
DOI: 10.14195/978-989-26-0494-7
Concise overview of Portugal’s royal military hospitals from the 17th through the early 19th century. Although focusing on hospitals on the Portuguese mainland, it provides a useful background on military medicine during this period, examining hospitals in religious, urban, and architectural contexts. Extensively illustrated with contemporary prints and plans as well as recent photographs.
Brisou, Bernard, and Michel Sardet, eds. Dictionnaire des médecins, chirurgiens et pharmaciens de la Marine. Vincennes, France: Service historique de la defense, 2010.
Outlines the careers of French naval physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, both overseas and domestic, from 1666 to the 20th century. Entries of individuals list publications and accomplishments.
Cantlie, Neil. A History of the Army Medical Department. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1974.
Chronological narrative of the history of the role of disease in the British Army and developments in military medicine; useful for basic administrative details.
Keevil, J. J., Christopher Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter. Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900. 4 vols. London: Livingstone, 1957–1963.
Comprehensive overview of health and medical conditions in Britain’s Royal Navy and merchant fleets. Volume 3: 1714–1815 provides the most detail on the effects of poor health on overseas campaigns.
Massons, José Maria. Historia de la sanidad militar española. Barcelona: Pomares-Corredor, 1994.
Four-volume chronological overview of the history of Spanish military medicine, of which Volume 1 provides details on Spain’s early modern campaigns in America.
Menses, J. V. e. Armadas portuguesas: Apoio sanitário na época dos Descobrimentos. Lisbon, Portugal: Academia de Marinha, 1987.
Outlines the health and welfare onboard Portuguese fleets, focusing on the 15th and 16th centuries, detailing diseases, food, medicine, and the responsibilities of surgeons and other medical personnel.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets