Description:

Speaker

Mariola Espinosa, University of Iowa

Title

Caribbean Connections: Towards a Global Vision in the History of Medicine

Abstract

This talk discusses how the history of disease and medicine, which is usually studied in very localized historical contexts, benefits from also being evaluated from a broader, more global, perspective. The Caribbean provides a perfect example to see how connections among islands and mainland ports—between their inhabitants, their economies, their environments, among others—are manifested in the history of epidemics and of medical knowledge.  Studying the history of disease and medicine in this manner reveals the interconnections between the islands and the networks of medical knowledge to be multi-directional exchanges that at the same time transcend the boundaries of language and empires.