Concluding Remarks

Abstract

I very much appreciate the invitation to add a few general comments to this interesting collection of chapters on medicine in the Indian Ocean World (IOW). I learnt a lot from attending the conference, “Histories of Medicine in the Indian Ocean World,” from which the volume began. My aim now is not to summarize or introduce the various chapters, or to draw out some general themes found in them, for Anna Winterbottom and Facil Tesfaye’s introduction does this. I merely raise some much more general themes, namely, general trends in Indian Ocean work, and then what I perceive to be the crucial matter of relations and connections between indigenous medicine in various parts of the IOW and the arrival of Western, “scientific” medicine from the sixteenth century onward. Finally, the role of the state both before and during colonialism is crucial. As I ruminate on these matters, I, of course, from time to time, refer to relevant chapters that precede my own contribution. I have provided fuller accounts of some of these matters in previous publications.¹ Let me start with some very basic matters regarding medical history in general. We need to distinguish between crisis mortality and background deaths. In the first category are such famous epidemics as cholera, smallpox, plague, and now AIDS and Ebola.