In our investigation of plantation medical practice, we look at the doctors and other white and black people who treated slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. More specifically, we are concerned with the extent of practice, the frequency of visits to slave hospitals, methods of procuring and dispensing medicines, and doctors' compensation. Among other things, the chapter contains case studies of individual doctors and comparisons with plantation medical practices in other slave societies.

The “irregular” practitioners

West Indian medical practice in the age of slavery developed from a system dominated by urban-based doctors who mainly treated white patients on an individual basis to a system of both urban- and rural-based doctors, with the latter treating chiefly black patients who were attached to estates and plantations on an annual contract basis. The shift from a predominantly white, urban-based practice to one directed chiefly to slaves attached to agricultural units can be explained, in part, by the near-monoculture system of sugar production.