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A couple of points about Tony Glaser's recent mail to caribbean-studies... At Monday, July 24, 2000 1:20 AM Tony Glaser <[log in to unmask]> wrote > the very short life expectancy of white planters in British > Guiana...was usually attributed to yellow fever, > malaria, and all manner of tropical diseases...while the real > cause was actually alcoholism. Well...certainly planters in the 17th century English Caribbean drank a lot (mainly imported European wines and spirits, but even Somerset beer and cider!). But we shouldn't underestimate the effects of the unique combination of European and African diseases in a new tropical environment. Europeans in the West Indies encountered African pathogens which were new to them - such as sleeping sickness, hookworm, leprosy, elephantiasis, etc. (Scott 1942; cf. Crosby 1986, 139-41). > One might also contemplate the protective effects of some of these > "sins" (alcohol, sexual availability of slaves, servants, > prostitutes) being relatively unavailable to slaves, and the > epidemiological consequences of these vectors of disease (together > with drugs) being freely available to everybody in more recent times. Surely venereal disease and excessive alcohol use affected the slave and indentured labourer populations just as much as planters and merchants? Rum was consumed in large quantities by slaves and indentured labourers in the English sugar islands at this time - a cheap proto-industrial by-product! As for drugs...I don't know of any historical analysis of drug use in the Caribbean, but again would be surprised to hear that it was restricted to white populations. Apart from tobacco and possibly cannabis, what drugs were available in Jamaica in 1655-1780, were they present in quantity, and would any discernible health problems have really resulted from their use? Finally, it is of course essential to remember in this discussion that slave mortality was significantly higher than that among the planter class. The planters may have had a lot of French brandy to get sick on, but they did not experience the unimaginable hardships of a slave's life. Full refs: Scott, HH 1942 _A History of Tropical Medicine_ Baltimore Crosby, A 1986 _Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 AD_ Cambridge; Cambridge UP. Best wishes, Dan Hicks Research Student Department of Archaeology University of Bristol %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%