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In this ambitious analysis of medical encounters in West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade, Kananoja considers both African and European perceptions of health, disease and healing. Arguing that the period was characterised by continuous knowledge exchange, he shows that indigenous natural medicine was used by locals and non-Africans alike.
List of contents
1. Healing (and harming) specialists: plural medicine in Angola and Kongo; 2. Cross-Cultural experiments: the materiality of medicine in West-Central Africa; 3. 'Much better suited than we are, as regards their health care': African botanical expertise and medical knowledge on the Gold Coast; 4. Remedies on the spot: science, agricultural development and botanical knowledge in Sierra Leone ca. 1800; 5. Healers, hospitals and medicines: European medical practice in Angola; 6. Treating their symptoms: limits of humoural medicine; 7. Migrations: medical geography in the Southern Atlantic; 8. Conclusion.
About the author
Kalle Kananoja is a senior researcher at the University of Oulu. He is an expert in early modern Atlantic history and has published articles on Angolan and Afro-Brazilian religious and medical culture. Kananoja is the co-editor of Healers and Empires: Healing as Hybrid and Contested Knowledge in Global History, 1700s–1900s (2019).
Summary
In this ambitious analysis of medical encounters in West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade, Kananoja considers both African and European perceptions of health, disease and healing. Arguing that the period was characterised by continuous knowledge exchange, he shows that indigenous natural medicine was used by locals and non-Africans alike.
Additional text
'Kalle Kanonoja has created a groundbreaking work in the study of medicine in Africa and in the larger Atlantic world. In this clearly written and marvelously researched contribution, Kanonoja shows that African medical systems were quite similar to those of Europe in the pre-scientific era; with some herbal knowledge and some religious hope. This work will be critical to redefining the way Africa is presented in the history of science and medicine.' John Thornton, Boston University
