Quintessentially Modern Heroes: Surgeons, Explorers and Empire, c.1840-1914

Chris Lawrence; Michael Brown

doi:10.1093/jsh/shw014

Quintessentially Modern Heroes: Surgeons, Explorers and Empire, c.1840-1914

Chris Lawrence
, Michael Brown

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

There is a rich longstanding literature examining the rise of surgery as the medical treatment of choice in the late nineteenth century. This has been added to in recent years by examination of the ways in which bodily knowledge was used as the basis of governance in industrial societies. There is likewise now a significant modern literature on exploration and colonialism. Here we link these two domains; using the examples of Africa and North America we investigate the ways in which the surgical opening of the body and the exploration and colonization of the earth were deeply related enterprises. We make this linkage in several ways: through the shared cultures of manliness and heroism, through the social history of professions, through the epistemological similarities in the objects of knowledge, and through everyday practices. We conclude that both enterprises were related colonizations, rooted in modern industrial capitalism, one of the body the other of foreign territory.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	148-178
Journal	Journal of Social History
Volume	50
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shw014
Publication status	Published - 1 May 2016

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10.1093/jsh/shw014

Royal College of Physicians 500 year lecture series: 1800s: Making medical men - conflict, empire and identity in the nineteenth century
Brown, M. (Advisor)
10 Jul 2018
Activity: Public engagement and outreach › Public speaking engagements

Surgery & Emotion
Brown, M. (PI)
The Wellcome Trust
1/09/16 → 31/12/21
Project: Research

Cite this

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Quintessentially Modern Heroes: Surgeons, Explorers and Empire, c.1840-1914

Abstract

Access to Document

Activities

Royal College of Physicians 500 year lecture series: 1800s: Making medical men - conflict, empire and identity in the nineteenth century

Projects

Surgery & Emotion

Cite this