Sickness Season: Women, Disease, and Healing in Iberia Parish
Historian Christopher D. E. Willoughby presented a program on health and medicine in the antebellum period. During this time, enslaved people and enslavers spread further and further West in the Deep South. With them, they brought epidemic diseases like cholera and yellow fever. In Sickness Season: Women, Disease, and Healing in Iberia Parish, Willoughby will examine the diseases that plagued plantations but also the women who treated them. In a period of deep medical distrust, women (both enslaver and enslaved) routinely administered medicines rather than the local doctor.
The talk took place on June 3 at 1 p.m. at the Shadows Visitor Center (320 E. Main Street, New Iberia). The program was free to attend and open for all.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Christopher D. E. Willoughby is an Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In 2016, he received his PhD in history from Tulane University. He is the author of Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools, which was published last year by the University of North Carolina Press. In 2021 with Sean Morey Smith, he edited the book Medicine and Healing in the Age of Slavery, published by LSU Press. In addition to scholarly articles, he has been published in various popular venues like The Washington Post and AL.com.
Sickness Season: Women, Disease, and Healing in Iberia Parish has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
