Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Colonial Disease
  • Cited by 133
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      06 January 2010
      28 February 1992
      ISBN:
      9780511583704
      9780521524520
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583704
      Dimensions:
      Weight & Pages:
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.566kg, 352 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Science Handbooks, Area Studies, African Studies, History, History of Medicine, African History
      Series:
      Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Science Handbooks, Area Studies, African Studies, History, History of Medicine, African History
    Series:
    Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine
    Information

    Book description

    The Belgians commonly referred to their colonisation of the Congo as a 'civilising mission', and many regarded the introduction of western bio-medicine as a central feature of their 'gift' to Africans. By 1930, however, it was clear that some features of their 'civilising mission' were in fact closely connected to the poor health of many of the Congolese. The Europeans had indeed brought scientific enquiry and western bio-medicine; but they had also introduced a harsh, repressive political system which, coupled with a ruthlessly exploitative economic system, led to the introduction of new diseases while already-existing diseases were exacerbated and spread. Tropical, or 'colonial', medicine was a new field at the turn of the century, linked closely both to European expansionism and human trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness. In 1901 a devastating epidemic had erupted in Uganda, killing well over 250,000 people.

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.