Journal of Medieval Iberian StudiesVolume 7, Issue 2, 2015 |
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Medicine and Empire: Healthcare, Diet and Disease in Portugal (1350–1550)
Open access
- DOI:
- 10.1080/17546559.2015.1077390
pages 151-175
- Received: 12 Nov 2014
- Accepted: 25 Jul 2015
- Published online: 01 Sep 2015
© 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis
Abstract
Colonial
medicine is a thriving field of study in the history of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century medicine. Medicine can be used as a lens to view
colonialism in action and as a way to critique colonialism. This article
argues that key debates and ideas from that modern field can fruitfully
be applied to the Middle Ages, especially for the early empires of
Spain and Portugal (mid-fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries). The
article identifies key modern debates, explores approaches to
colonization and colonialism in the Middle Ages and discusses how
medieval and modern medicine and healthcare could be compared using
colonial and postcolonial discourses. The article ends with three case
studies of healthcare encounters in Madeira, Granada and Hispaniola at
the end of the fifteenth century.
