Science and Seeing: The Visual Technology of Contagion in 19th Century India
The technology that we use today allows us to explore the microscopic world in great detail. Before we had cutting-edge gadgets to study medicine and biology, scientists used various other technologies, tools, and methods to advance their knowledge. Using the examples of early light microscopy and photography, this talk by David Arnold explored the microcosm and macrocosm of contagion, the changing role of instruments and imagery in medical science, and the rise of the laboratory in India from the first cholera epidemics to bubonic plague in the 1890s.
About the Historian
David Arnold is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Warwick, UK, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has published widely on science, medicine and environment in British and post-Independence India. His books include Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in 19th Century India (1993), Everyday Technology: Machines and the Making of India's Modernity (2013), Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution in Modern India (2016). He is writing a history of pandemics in India from cholera to COVID-19.
