Borrowing, Adapting, and Learning the Practices of Smallpox

Notes from Colonial Goa

Bibliographic Data

ID7213258
AuthorsCristiana Lage David Bastos (0000-0001-5387-4770, Institute of Social Sciences, corresponding author), Cristiana Bastos
Year2009
Volume83
Issue1
Pages141-163
Publication date2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBulletin of the history of medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-5140 • E-ISSN: 1086-3176
PublisherJohns Hopkins University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/bhm.0.0191
PMID19329845
OpenAlexW2000524033
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited16

In this article I will address colonial state policies toward smallpox in nineteenth-century Goa. The picture that emerges from the analysis of health services documents suggests a broad variety of coexisting practices. While the actions of some of the Portuguese head physicians epitomized the conflict between state-sponsored vaccination policies and local preferences for smallpox inoculation, others showed sympathy for and developed arguments in favor of inoculation as practiced by indigenous experts. Still others observed the existence among the population of hybrid practices combining elements of vaccination and inoculation. The diversity of Goan combinations along the violence/collaboration continuum should be interpreted within the context of current trends in the analysis of smallpox in British India—which replace the paradigm of vaccination: variolation :: state violence: native resistance with a more nuanced understanding of a variety of combinations throughout the subcontinent in the nineteenth century

Biology · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Indigenous · Political science · Population · Resistance (ecology · Smallpox · Sociology · State (computer science · Vaccination · Variety (cybernetics · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Demography · Ecology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Medicine · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy · Virology

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