Heather Bell
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207498
- eISBN:
- 9780191677694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207498.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter looks at disease control in a part of Sudan that was arguably the Gezira's polar opposite. Located at the heart of the country, the Gezira was an environment ordered, although never ...
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This chapter looks at disease control in a part of Sudan that was arguably the Gezira's polar opposite. Located at the heart of the country, the Gezira was an environment ordered, although never completely, by colonialism and capitalism. Sleeping sickness appeared on a physical frontier. The tsetse fly that transmitted the disease was confined to an economically insignificant and politically unstable region that was extremely remote from Khartoum, where political officials were either serving and where military doctors provided civil medical services until well into the inter-war period. This chapter argues that political, economic, geographical, and epidemiological factors were crucial in shaping disease control efforts in Sudan. Mapping — of tsetse flies, rivers, villages, and geographical landmarks — was the crucial preliminary to disease control, and provided intelligence about little known territory. This chapter progresses from early research expeditions, through the imposition of strict measures to eradicate the epidemics, to the eventual embrace of tsetse fly control in the late 1930s. It shows that sleeping sickness itself had a high mortality rate.Less
This chapter looks at disease control in a part of Sudan that was arguably the Gezira's polar opposite. Located at the heart of the country, the Gezira was an environment ordered, although never completely, by colonialism and capitalism. Sleeping sickness appeared on a physical frontier. The tsetse fly that transmitted the disease was confined to an economically insignificant and politically unstable region that was extremely remote from Khartoum, where political officials were either serving and where military doctors provided civil medical services until well into the inter-war period. This chapter argues that political, economic, geographical, and epidemiological factors were crucial in shaping disease control efforts in Sudan. Mapping — of tsetse flies, rivers, villages, and geographical landmarks — was the crucial preliminary to disease control, and provided intelligence about little known territory. This chapter progresses from early research expeditions, through the imposition of strict measures to eradicate the epidemics, to the eventual embrace of tsetse fly control in the late 1930s. It shows that sleeping sickness itself had a high mortality rate.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores the development of policies to combat sleeping sickness in British, Belgian, and German colonies in East Africa. It argues that even though policy-making was carried out within ...
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This chapter explores the development of policies to combat sleeping sickness in British, Belgian, and German colonies in East Africa. It argues that even though policy-making was carried out within national contexts, strategies to address this problem developed and changed over time because of the combination of local circumstances and transnational scientific contact and collaboration.Less
This chapter explores the development of policies to combat sleeping sickness in British, Belgian, and German colonies in East Africa. It argues that even though policy-making was carried out within national contexts, strategies to address this problem developed and changed over time because of the combination of local circumstances and transnational scientific contact and collaboration.
Deborah Neill
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book ...
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This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book shows that this transnational collaboration in a context of European colonialism, scientific discovery, and internationalism shaped the character of a new medical specialty. Even in an era of intense competition among European states, practitioners of tropical medicine created a transnational scientific community through which they influenced each other and the health care that was introduced to the tropical world. One of the most important developments in the shaping of tropical medicine as a specialty was the major sleeping sickness epidemic that spread across sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the century. The book describes how scientists and doctors collaborated across borders to control, contain, and find a treatment for the disease. It demonstrates that these medical specialists' shared notions of “Europeanness,” rooted in common beliefs about scientific, technological, and racial superiority, led them to establish a colonial medical practice in Africa that sometimes oppressed the same people it was created to help.Less
This book explores how European doctors and scientists worked together across borders to establish the new field of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book shows that this transnational collaboration in a context of European colonialism, scientific discovery, and internationalism shaped the character of a new medical specialty. Even in an era of intense competition among European states, practitioners of tropical medicine created a transnational scientific community through which they influenced each other and the health care that was introduced to the tropical world. One of the most important developments in the shaping of tropical medicine as a specialty was the major sleeping sickness epidemic that spread across sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the century. The book describes how scientists and doctors collaborated across borders to control, contain, and find a treatment for the disease. It demonstrates that these medical specialists' shared notions of “Europeanness,” rooted in common beliefs about scientific, technological, and racial superiority, led them to establish a colonial medical practice in Africa that sometimes oppressed the same people it was created to help.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in ...
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This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in Africa, as the problem of the disease intensified in the wake of the war and remained a major issue for tropical medicine researchers and doctors in the post-war period.Less
This chapter explores some aspects of the changed relationship between France, Britain, and Germany after 1918 and how it affected transnational tropical medicine. It focuses on sleeping sickness in Africa, as the problem of the disease intensified in the wake of the war and remained a major issue for tropical medicine researchers and doctors in the post-war period.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778138
- eISBN:
- 9780804781053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778138.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter looks more closely at sleeping sickness drug therapy research, specifically the collaborative network created by Paul Ehrlich in Africa. It focuses specifically on his relationships with ...
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This chapter looks more closely at sleeping sickness drug therapy research, specifically the collaborative network created by Paul Ehrlich in Africa. It focuses specifically on his relationships with researchers in London, Entebbe, Paris, and Brazzaville, and then assesses the impact that this research had on African patients.Less
This chapter looks more closely at sleeping sickness drug therapy research, specifically the collaborative network created by Paul Ehrlich in Africa. It focuses specifically on his relationships with researchers in London, Entebbe, Paris, and Brazzaville, and then assesses the impact that this research had on African patients.
Heather Bell
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207498
- eISBN:
- 9780191677694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207498.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Embroiled in the detail of medical training programmes and disease control efforts, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the boundaries of colonial medicine in Sudan expanded in some very basic ...
More
Embroiled in the detail of medical training programmes and disease control efforts, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the boundaries of colonial medicine in Sudan expanded in some very basic ways between 1899 and 1940. Driven by the ambition of its doctors and by the changing priorities of the colonial state, the medical administration literally and figuratively carved out new spaces in which to operate. While colonial doctors burned down some Sudanese homes in the name of disease control, colonial medicine had, in what was arguably its most radical undertaking, ventured peacefully into others through trained midwifery. Essential in determining which diseases were addressed and in what way were the ambition and the interests of the doctors themselves: the projects of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories, the early search for sleeping sickness cases, and above all the quest for the yellow fever virus were at least partly driven by the intellectual excitement of the doctors involved. The colonial setting helped to blur the boundary between medicine and politics in some cases.Less
Embroiled in the detail of medical training programmes and disease control efforts, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the boundaries of colonial medicine in Sudan expanded in some very basic ways between 1899 and 1940. Driven by the ambition of its doctors and by the changing priorities of the colonial state, the medical administration literally and figuratively carved out new spaces in which to operate. While colonial doctors burned down some Sudanese homes in the name of disease control, colonial medicine had, in what was arguably its most radical undertaking, ventured peacefully into others through trained midwifery. Essential in determining which diseases were addressed and in what way were the ambition and the interests of the doctors themselves: the projects of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories, the early search for sleeping sickness cases, and above all the quest for the yellow fever virus were at least partly driven by the intellectual excitement of the doctors involved. The colonial setting helped to blur the boundary between medicine and politics in some cases.
Michael A. Osborne
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226114521
- eISBN:
- 9780226114668
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226114668.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The chapter treats the organization of civilian colonial medical instruction at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. A central figure in this, the parasitologist, anthropologist, and physician-naturalist ...
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The chapter treats the organization of civilian colonial medical instruction at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. A central figure in this, the parasitologist, anthropologist, and physician-naturalist Raphaël Blanchard, exploited changes in the regulatory regimes of naval, colonial and civilian medicine, as well as structural changes in colonial governance, to found an Institute of Colonial Medicine in 1902. As the sphere of naval activities contracted, Blanchard’s students and associates, including Émile Brumpt, who later replaced Blanchard in Paris, Jules Guiart who became a professor at Lyon, and Charles Joyeux who became the first professor of parasitology of the Marseille Faculty of Medicine, influenced the trajectory of French tropical medicine by investigating Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, malaria, and many other afflictions of the tropical and near-tropical world.Less
The chapter treats the organization of civilian colonial medical instruction at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. A central figure in this, the parasitologist, anthropologist, and physician-naturalist Raphaël Blanchard, exploited changes in the regulatory regimes of naval, colonial and civilian medicine, as well as structural changes in colonial governance, to found an Institute of Colonial Medicine in 1902. As the sphere of naval activities contracted, Blanchard’s students and associates, including Émile Brumpt, who later replaced Blanchard in Paris, Jules Guiart who became a professor at Lyon, and Charles Joyeux who became the first professor of parasitology of the Marseille Faculty of Medicine, influenced the trajectory of French tropical medicine by investigating Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, malaria, and many other afflictions of the tropical and near-tropical world.
Alexander H. Harcourt
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520272118
- eISBN:
- 9780520951778
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520272118.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
Parasites and diseases vary regionally, and therefore so does human physiology. For example, people who live in malarial areas have a different hemoglobin than do people who live outside malarial ...
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Parasites and diseases vary regionally, and therefore so does human physiology. For example, people who live in malarial areas have a different hemoglobin than do people who live outside malarial regions. Some diseases have probably slowed conquerors, because they were not adapted to the diseases of the invaded regions. Yellow fever, for example, prevented the French from building the Panama Canal, and therefore from invading Panama. On the other hand, the invaders brought new diseases into the conquered regions to which the residents were not resistant. These diseases, as much as superior firepower, aided the conquests.Less
Parasites and diseases vary regionally, and therefore so does human physiology. For example, people who live in malarial areas have a different hemoglobin than do people who live outside malarial regions. Some diseases have probably slowed conquerors, because they were not adapted to the diseases of the invaded regions. Yellow fever, for example, prevented the French from building the Panama Canal, and therefore from invading Panama. On the other hand, the invaders brought new diseases into the conquered regions to which the residents were not resistant. These diseases, as much as superior firepower, aided the conquests.
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780262535021
- eISBN:
- 9780262345859
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262535021.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The tsetse fly is a pan-African insect that bites an infective forest animal and ingests blood filled with invisible parasites, which it carries and transmits into cattle and people as it bites them, ...
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The tsetse fly is a pan-African insect that bites an infective forest animal and ingests blood filled with invisible parasites, which it carries and transmits into cattle and people as it bites them, leading to n'gana (animal trypanosomiasis) and sleeping sickness. This book examines how the presence of the tsetse fly turned the forests of Zimbabwe and southern Africa into an open laboratory where African knowledge formed the basis of colonial tsetse control policies. The book traces the pestiferous work that an indefatigable, mobile insect does through its movements, and the work done by humans to control it. The book restores the central role not just of African labor but of African intellect in the production of knowledge about the tsetse fly. It describes how European colonizers built on and beyond this knowledge toward destructive and toxic methods, including cutting down entire forests, forced “prophylactic” resettlement, massive destruction of wild animals, and extensive spraying of organochlorine pesticides. Throughout, the book uses African terms to describe the African experience, taking vernacular concepts as starting points in writing a narrative of ruzivo (knowledge) rather than viewing Africa through foreign keywords.Less
The tsetse fly is a pan-African insect that bites an infective forest animal and ingests blood filled with invisible parasites, which it carries and transmits into cattle and people as it bites them, leading to n'gana (animal trypanosomiasis) and sleeping sickness. This book examines how the presence of the tsetse fly turned the forests of Zimbabwe and southern Africa into an open laboratory where African knowledge formed the basis of colonial tsetse control policies. The book traces the pestiferous work that an indefatigable, mobile insect does through its movements, and the work done by humans to control it. The book restores the central role not just of African labor but of African intellect in the production of knowledge about the tsetse fly. It describes how European colonizers built on and beyond this knowledge toward destructive and toxic methods, including cutting down entire forests, forced “prophylactic” resettlement, massive destruction of wild animals, and extensive spraying of organochlorine pesticides. Throughout, the book uses African terms to describe the African experience, taking vernacular concepts as starting points in writing a narrative of ruzivo (knowledge) rather than viewing Africa through foreign keywords.
