Is alcohol a tropical medicine? Scientific understandings of climate, stimulants and bodies in Victorian and Edwardian tropical travel.

IF 0.7 1区 哲学 Q2 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2021-12-01 DOI:10.1017/S0007087421000649
Edward Armston-Sheret, Kim Walker
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

This paper offers a new perspective on historical understandings of the relationship between alcohol, climate and the body, by studying the way that British explorers of tropical Africa drank alcohol and wrote about drink between c.1850 and c.1910. We demonstrate that alcohol was simultaneously classified as a medicinal, a preventative and a pleasurable drink, shaped by competing medical theories, but that distinctions between these different roles were highly blurred. We also show how many explorers thought certain drinks helped to protect white bodies from the effects of tropical diseases. While popular amongst travellers, these views came under growing scrutiny in the latter part of the nineteenth century, reflecting both changing scientific views about the relationship between alcohol, climate and the body and the development of a much larger European presence in tropical Africa. However, even those who opposed tropical drinking often supported the use of other stimulants and viewed the tropics as uniquely dangerous. As such, the paper challenges the idea that the late nineteenth century marked a paradigm shift in scientific attitudes towards tropical environments, as much previous scholarship has suggested. At the same time, our examinations of explorers' descriptions of drinking by African people demonstrates how ideas about racial difference played an important role within medical understandings of alcohol. Overall, this paper examines the heterogeny of attitudes to alcohol to be found within tropical medicine and documents the continuities in approach shown between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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酒精是热带药物吗?维多利亚和爱德华时代热带旅行中对气候、兴奋剂和身体的科学理解。
本文通过研究1850年至1910年间英国热带非洲探险家饮酒和写作的方式,为对酒精、气候和身体之间关系的历史理解提供了一个新的视角。我们证明,酒精同时被归类为药用、预防和愉悦的饮料,由相互竞争的医学理论塑造,但这些不同角色之间的区别是高度模糊的。我们还展示了许多探险家认为某些饮料有助于保护白身体免受热带疾病的影响。虽然这些观点在旅行者中很受欢迎,但在19世纪后半叶,这些观点受到了越来越多的审查,这既反映了关于酒精、气候和身体之间关系的科学观点的变化,也反映了欧洲人在热带非洲的发展。然而,即使是那些反对热带地区饮酒的人也经常支持使用其他兴奋剂,并认为热带地区特别危险。因此,这篇论文挑战了这样一种观点,即19世纪晚期标志着对热带环境的科学态度的范式转变,正如许多以前的学术研究所表明的那样。与此同时,我们对探险家对非洲人饮酒的描述的研究表明,关于种族差异的想法在医学上对酒精的理解中发挥了重要作用。总的来说,本文考察了在热带医学中发现的对酒精的态度的异质性,并记录了19世纪和20世纪之间所显示的方法的连续性。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
12.50%
发文量
59
期刊介绍: This leading international journal publishes scholarly papers and review articles on all aspects of the history of science. History of science is interpreted widely to include medicine, technology and social studies of science. BJHS papers make important and lively contributions to scholarship and the journal has been an essential library resource for more than thirty years. It is also used extensively by historians and scholars in related fields. A substantial book review section is a central feature. There are four issues a year, comprising an annual volume of over 600 pages. Published for the British Society for the History of Science
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