Carbolic Colonialism

Plague, Public Health, and Disability in British India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3924462
AutoresJacob Steere-Williams, Jacob Steere‐william (0000-0001-5109-5546, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen39
Páginas225-243
Fecha de publicación2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOsiris (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/730409
OpenAlexW4400032943
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas29

Industrial capitalism has engendered human and animal bodies toxic in myriad and uneven ways—internal, external, environmental, ecological. This article examines the entanglements of public health, technology, coal, and the body through a singular chemical: carbolic acid (also known as phenol). Derived from coal tar production in British factories, carbolic acid exploded in use from the 1870s in Europe and across colonial environments. Though heralded as the first public health and surgical “magic bullet,” chemists and coroners clamored to legislate carbolic acid as a dangerous poison—by 1900, carbolic acid poisonings and suicides were leading causes of death around the Atlantic World. Though used as a common household disinfectant, carbolic acid was used on the bodies of Indians and Africans during the third plague pandemic. This article thus asks big questions about regulation, the disabled colonial body, the unequal burdens of toxicity, and the invisible health impacts of the industrial revolution

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