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Carolus Linnaeus' creation of the term 'Mammalia' in 1758 could be seen as a political act. Linnaeus based his definition of mammals on the milk-producing characteristic, but only female mammals produce milk, and they produce it for a fairly limited period of time. Linnaeus probably did not intentionally select a gender-specific term to describe mammals, but he was influenced by culture and politics. During the 18th century, politicians and physicians were promoting the benefits of mother's milk.

This article examines medical experimentation with humans in the Atlantic world. Physicians in this period tended to use bodies interchangeably in medical trials; subjects were scarce and, for the most part, used with extreme care. Experimentalists in this period, however, faced a paradox. In the second half of the eighteenth century naturalists across Europe began focusing attention on what they perceived to be racial differences. At the same time medical experimentalists required that human bodies be fully interchangeable if results were to hold universally. The dilemma, then, was this: on the one hand, physicians tended to emphasize racial difference with respect to the science of race; on the other hand, they assumed uniformity across humans with respect to developing drug therapies. It was in this context that important questions arose about whether experiments done among Caribbean slave populations were valid for Europeans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]