The Colic of Madrid (1788–1814): Experts, Poisons, Politics, and War at the End of the Ancien Régime in Spain

In: Social history of medicine, Band 33, Heft 3, S. 728-748

Abstract

Summary
This paper explores the management of health hazards caused by the use of lead compounds in food vessels. My focus is on the regulations promulgated in 1801 in Spain. The main protagonists of the paper are late eighteenth-century members of the Madrid Academy of Medicine interested in public health issues, chemists with contrasting views on the regulation of toxic hazards, enlightened artisans with particular ways of knowing and doing, and French military surgeons involved in the long-term controversy concerning the causes and remedies of what was known as the 'colic of Madrid'. Many general issues regarding the regulation of toxic risks are discussed: the disputed fields of expertise, the changing social anxieties, the diverse agency of the stakeholders and decision makers, the technologies for identifying poisons and for assessing their effects, and the persistent tensions and conflicts inside the various professional and academic groups.