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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Unfinished Agendas: Writing the History of Medicine in Sub-Saharan Africa |
Author: | Malowany, Maureen |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
Volume: | 99 |
Issue: | 395 |
Period: | April |
Pages: | 325-349 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Subsaharan Africa Africa |
Subjects: | medical history Health and Nutrition History and Exploration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/723812 |
Abstract: | Over the past century sub-Saharan Africa has been the target site for a number of experiments and programmes which sought to control and manage infectious diseases. The author argues that while individual campaigns, such as smallpox eradication, have loudly proclaimed success, and others, such as malaria eradication, have merely whispered failure, it is timely to revisit both successes and failures for the lessons that can be learned from each. After an outline of the various approaches of historians to the history of medicine, she analyses the history of trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in Africa, in order to illustrate the intervention of different medical, environmental and cultural factors. Then she describes the establishment of research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa (1913-1950), local and international agendas after the influenza pandemic in 1918-1919, disease control strategies for malaria and smallpox, and the present challenge of preventing and treating HIV/AIDS. Notes, ref. |