Public Health in the British Empire: Intermediaries, Subordinates, and the Practice of Public Health, 1850-1960

Over the last several decades, historians of public health in Britain's colonies have been primarily concerned with the process of policy making in the upper echelons of the medical and sanitary administrations. Yet it was the lower level staff that formed the backbone of the medical systems in the colonies. While there has been a definite shift towards considering the contributions of medical subordinates in the workings of the public health systems in specific colonies, there is as yet no consolidated study of the significance of these auxiliaries (both medical and non-medical) who constituted the very bases of the public health systems across the British Empire. Public Health in the British Empire addresses this gap by bringing together historians studying intermediaries and subordinates in public health systems in different British colonies.This volume investigates the duties and responsibilities of these medical and non-medical subordinate personnel, as well as intermediary agents such as local rulers, and draws attention to their significance. It further considers how the subjectivity of subordinates influenced the manner in which they discharged their duties and how this in turn shaped public health policy itself. The book underscores the importance of such personnel and argues that the making of colonial health policy was not a top-down process but was instead far more interactive where even those working as low level assistant and aides were able to affect policy design. Furthermore, by analyzing the position of intermediaries and subordinates in different colonial contexts the book sheds light on the workings of the colonial state. Through an analysis of the agency of intermediaries and subordinates the chapters in this book bring into sharp relief the disaggregated nature of the colonial state (and the Empire) thereby challenging the understanding of the imperial project as an enterprise conceived of and driven from the centre.