An Analysis of the British Medical Community's Discriminatory Understanding of the Causes of Black Skin Color in the 19th Century
The development of natural history and medicine,as well as the large number of contacts with"colored people"during colonial expansion,gave rise to the Western medical community's new thinkings on the skin color differences.Since the 18th century,Scottish Enlightenment thinkers have made a series of critical understandings of"environmental determinism",which became an important ideological background for the British medical community to study the causes of black skin color in the 19th century.Under its influence,the British medical community adhered to a discriminatory"innate determinism",believing that the different skin colors of humans were not caused by climate change,but were the external expression of the natural instincts of different races,which could also reflect the degree of"civilization".This discriminatory perception not only affected the British medical community's diagnosis and treatment of tropical skin diseases of blacks,but also shaped the racial image of blacks as"uncivilized"and"defective",and further"proved"the so-called"white superiority",which provided a basis for Western colonists to discriminate,dominate and oppress blacks and other"colored people".
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