The Art of Colonial Medicine: Visual Cultures of Malaria in India, 1890-1940

In 1897, Ronald Ross, a Surgeon Major at the colonial Indian Medical Service, discovered that Anopheles mosquitoes communicated malarial parasites between human bodies. Though Ross recognised the centrality of images to contemporary studies on malaria, the history of how images shaped the creation and dissemination of malarial knowledge in India remains unexplored. My project addresses this gap by analysing how and why images- drawings, illustrations, and photographs - relating to malaria were created by imperial scientists, British Indian administrators, and colonised South Asians. Focussing on the period between 1890 and1940, I will explore how images gave expression to scientific knowledge. I address how images became central to the understanding of tropical medicine and public health that, in turn, influenced both British imperial governance and emerging South Asian nationalism. My project therefore highlights that interactions between the worlds of arts and medical science were fundamental to the field of colonial medicine.