Florence Nightingale and Bombay Presidency

Hansen’s discovery of the Leprosy Bacillus: controversy over preventive measures in 19th Century British Colonial India

“…Interestingly, and germane to this argument in the current paper, the post of Sanitary Commissioner for India was created on Nightingale's initiative. 4 The Royal College of Physicians of London initiated the first major scrutiny of leprosy in India in 1862, in response to claims of a leprosy epidemic in the British West Indies. Implicitly, their Report, submitted in 1867, 5 indicated that leprosy posed no risk to European health and political control.…”

“…20 The beneficiary, Thomas Gillham Hewlett (1831-1889), was Nightingale-approved: she had once described him as the "best" sanitary officer. 4 Carter retired from India in 1888. It was only in 1890, two years later, that amends were made with the award of "Honorary Deputy Surgeon-General".…”

Dr Hunter’s Plague: Gender, Race and Photography in British India

“…The general alarm fuelled intense opposition to colonial plague measures—including attempts to stop women being taken to hospital or carted off to segregation camps. In May 1897, Pandita Ramabai alleged that a girl from her refuge for widows and orphans had been ‘seduced’ while in Poona’s plague hospital (Bhattacharya, 2022; Ramanna, 2012). Her claim aroused considerable controversy since it constituted a wholesale indictment of the hospital and its treatment of women, not just because it highlighted an alleged attack on a single female patient ( ToI , 15 September 1897, p. 4; 7 October 1897, p. 4).…”