Different Truths: Ethnomedicine in Early Postcards

Abstract

Different Truths: Ethnomedicine in Early Postcards, by Peter A.G.M. De Smet. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2010. 216pp. ISBN 978-94-6022-017-3. EUR 34.50. Peter De Smet is a postcard collector, but with a very serious purpose. As it happens, so am I. For more than thirty years, I have been collecting postcard images of scenes and themes relating to the British Empire and of the shipping which underpinned its mercantile and passenger exchanges. One theme among my ten thousand or so cards is ethnic images, particularly those issued by missionary societies. De Smet, a distinguished pharmacist with an international reputation, has collected postcards with medical themes, not just of 'ethnic medicine' among the indigenous peoples of the European empires, but also folk medicines of Europe and even some examples of the dissemination of western medicine into the further reaches of the colonial world. There are many images of Africa in this collection. Indeed there is at least one overlap between his collection and mine. An image of plague inoculation in Bombay, which appeared as the cover illustration of David Arnold's edited Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies (1988), was taken from my collection: it reappears on the cover of De Smet's book. De Smet's collection was given the ultimate accolade of an exhibition at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and this book is associated with that public exposure. It is a book written with great sensitivity and demonstrating considerable anthropological expertise. Before embarking on the main body of its arguments, it offers sections on the history of postcards, on the reasons for collecting them (both in the past and today), the point of such collections and their increasing use as evidence of imperial constructions and attitudes. For postcards offer a multi-layered set of insights into their pasts. They, often uniquely, offer images of specific moments in particular places, most importantly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But they also offer insights into the motives of photographers and publishers in choosing particular scenes or themes. Moreover, they can be the subject of considerable manipulation, offering evidence for forms of lies as well as visual truths. They were used as propaganda devices, illustrated in their captions or in the additional material on their backs. In addition to all of that they can become small and unique historical documents, often with fascinating messages on those that have been postally used, conveying information from one continent to another. It is an interesting fact that etlrnomedical cards seldom seem to have been used in this way. Instead, they were purchased to enter private collections and are invariably devoid of messages or postal frankings. The reason for this is probably that they were not considered appealing images to send overseas. Indeed, some of them are extremely disturbing, showing medical conditions which give the viewer an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism into private tragedy. …