Medicine and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, History, and Culture: An Introduction

Abstract

The introduction to this volume charts the major historical and cultural transformations of medicine and mobility in nineteenth-century Britain and the ways in which they interconnect. Sandra Dinter and Sarah Schäfer-Althaus explore the professionalisation, institutionalisation, and commercialisation of medical practice and research in conjunction with the effects of the transport revolution on British national and colonial identity, class, and gender. Registering the ambiguities, contradictions, and (dis-)continuities of these processes, they identify how medicine and mobility constituted, influenced, and transformed each other. The authors subsequently survey current positions and crossovers in mobility studies and the medical humanities, demonstrating how theoretical and methodological paradigms of both fields potentially inform each other. After setting the scene, the introduction presents the three conceptual sections of the volume and summarises the individual contributions.