A Travelling Science: Anthropometry and Colonialism in the Indian Ocean

The Medical School in colonial Goa (a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961, located in the western Indian Ocean) has been the focus of a number of studies that situate the institution within the matrix of nineteenth-century colonial imperatives and philosophies. Of the many signifi cant aspects of the school that delineate its place in the exercise of colonial power, the following quote about its historiography seems apt for the purposes of this chapter.