Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Join Dr Rana Hogarth to investigate the circulation of ideas about ‘innate’ racial differences in the Caribbean and beyond through the writings of British military and civilian practitioners.
You will learn about how ideas of racial difference emerged in the late 18th century, as well as the role they played in advancing medical knowledge and empire.
This talk traces the process through which British practitioners who worked and lived in the West Indies propagated the myth of innate racial difference between Black and white people, particularly through their ideas about Black troops’ susceptibility to yellow fever. These actions made up the foundation of medical evidence used to mark the Black body as peculiar and ‘Other’ for years to come.
About your speaker
Dr Rana Hogarth
Rana Hogarth received her PhD in History of Science/History of Medicine from Yale University in 2012. Her scholarship interrogates conceptions of racial difference in North America and the Caribbean as they emerged through the language of medicine and science. Her current research interrogates links between slavery-era discourse about the (un)fitness of Black people and eugenicists’ preoccupations within race crossing in the early decades of the 20th century.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
Join Dr Rana Hogarth to investigate the circulation of ideas about ‘innate’ racial differences in the Caribbean and beyond through the writings of British military and civilian practitioners.
You will learn about how ideas of racial difference emerged in the late 18th century, as well as the role they played in advancing medical knowledge and empire.
This talk traces the process through which British practitioners who worked and lived in the West Indies propagated the myth of innate racial difference between Black and white people, particularly through their ideas about Black troops’ susceptibility to yellow fever. These actions made up the foundation of medical evidence used to mark the Black body as peculiar and ‘Other’ for years to come.
About your speaker
Dr Rana Hogarth
Rana Hogarth received her PhD in History of Science/History of Medicine from Yale University in 2012. Her scholarship interrogates conceptions of racial difference in North America and the Caribbean as they emerged through the language of medicine and science. Her current research interrogates links between slavery-era discourse about the (un)fitness of Black people and eugenicists’ preoccupations within race crossing in the early decades of the 20th century.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
