Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World, Volume One: The Medieval and Early Modern Period ed. by Anna Winterbottom and Facil Tesfaye, and: Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World, Volume Two: The Modern Period ed. by Anna Winterbottom and Facil Tesfaye (review)

Recent years have seen a spate of oceanic histories, and the Indian Ocean has been no exception. Works by historians such as Thomas Metcalf, Sugata Bose, and Sunil Amrith have added greatly to our understanding of flows of peoples and ideas during the modern era, complementing the work of scholars such as K. N. Chaudhuri and Sanjay Subrahmanyam on “early modern” and “medieval” times.¹ In these and most other works on the Indian Ocean, medicine and disease have received relatively little attention, certainly by comparison with the Mediterranean and Atlantic. But the history of disease and medicine in the Indian Ocean is gathering momentum after something of a lull, following the publication of David Arnold’s pioneering article, “The Indian Ocean as a Disease Zone.”² Few historians have taken up Arnold’s challenge to consider the Indian Ocean as a whole, but significant transoceanic work on disease and medicine has lately been undertaken by scholars such as Pratik Chakrabarti and Saurabh Mishra, for example.³

Building on this scholarship, the editors of the volumes reviewed here test the historiographical relevance of the Indian Ocean in a more explicit and deliberate way. Their organizing concept is the “Indian Ocean World” (IOW), and contributors were invited to consider the ways in which exchanges of commodities, practices, and pathogens shaped local experiences of medicine and healing. The first volume spans medieval and early modern times, and the second the modern period, from roughly 1800 to the present. The approach in both volumes is historical in the broadest sense of the term, but incorporates other disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology and archaeology. The subjects covered are diverse and include medieval Arabic and Indian medicine, maritime trade in medical products, European medical botany, the transit of indentured labor, plague and slavery in Egypt, aspects of medicine, psychiatry and public health in colonial India, Russian medical diplomacy in Ethiopia, the movement of medical practitioners between colonies, and the complex development of healing practices in Africa. The essays are complemented by a useful introduction by the editors and an afterword by M. N. Pearson, a scholar well known for his work on medical aspects of the Portuguese Empire.

In a short review, it is impossible to do justice to the rich diversity of the subjects considered in these essays, and it would be unfair to single any of them out for particular attention. They include many significant pieces of individual scholarship, and that alone makes these volumes a valuable addition to the literature. The most important task of a reviewer in such cases is to ask whether the essays cohere and whether the organizing concept makes sense. In relation to the first of these tasks, it may be said that the majority of essays speak to the main themes of the volume; in other words, they consider transoceanic exchanges that have shaped the epidemiological and medical histories of one or more localities within the IOW. However, the focus of some essays is a little narrow, and while significant in themselves, they do not always address the central theme as directly as they might.

By considering the IOW as a unit we certainly gain a great deal. Scholars have been aware for some time that “local” or “indigenous” medical practices in this region are usually more cosmopolitan than they seem. These interactions come through strongly in this book, which adds much to...