Title: Commentary on Raquel A. G. Reyes, "Environmentalist Thinking and the Question of Disease Causation in Late Spanish Philippines"
Abstract: J Hist Med Allied Sci (2014) 69 (4): 554–579 In her article “Environmentalist Thinking and the Question of Disease Causation in Late Spanish Philippines,” Raquel A. G. Reyes traces environmentalism, or the belief that physical environment shaped the bodies and character of all inhabitants, through the work of European-trained Filipino scientists during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the Spanish colonial context, “environmentalism” characterized Europeans' associations of disease with tropical climates. Reversing colonial prejudices and historical assumptions, the author contrasts the intellectual conservatism of Spanish colonial authorities with the Filipino scientists' innovative adoption of new European ideas about the microbial world. Reyes demonstrates ways in which these scientists hybridized local cultural and material knowledge with European theories of disease causation, arguing that by the 1880s and 1890s, they had created an “emergent scientific discourse that did not have climate, tropical nature, native bodies, and local customs at its heart” (26)—thus challenging colonial allegations of environmental insalubrity and human and animal degeneration in the Philippines.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-12-16
Language: en
Type: letter
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
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Cited By Count: 1
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