2 - The medical profession

Summary

This is a superb country [Jamaica] for physicians; a customary fee is a doubloon (5l. 6s. 8d. currency), and the inhabitants are all sick in their turn; for there are very few who escape a seasoning; and a great proportion die, or to use the metaphor of Aesculapius, “go the grand tour.” A physician is certainly interested in saving your life, for there is no trifling here: Nature hurries to a crisis, and many a patient is in a state of dissolution before death.

Cynric R. Williams, 1823

Given the harsh disease environment and the heavy investment in slave laborers in the Sugar Colonies, it was expected that the planters would employ physicians and surgeons to supply medical services to the blacks. In this chapter our attention is first centered on the recruitment of white doctors and efforts to upgrade the medical profession. After a brief survey of medicine in Cuba and North America, we look at the doctors who held diplomas from European medical schools and especially the doctor-scientists and authors. The conclusion attempts to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the white medical profession from the standpoint of their black patients.

Recruitment of doctors

Increasing the number and quality of medical practitioners was a concern to inhabitants and governments from the foundation of colonies. New settlements needed physicians and surgeons not only to treat diseases imported from Europe and Africa but also to cope with diseases that were indigenous to the New World.