Carbolic Colonialism

Plague, Public Health, and Disability in British India

Bibliographic Data

ID3924462
AuthorsJacob Steere-Williams, Jacob Steere‐william (0000-0001-5109-5546, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume39
Pages225-243
Publication date2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueOsiris (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/730409
OpenAlexW4400032943
LanguageEN
References cited29

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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