'This mysterious and intangible enemy': Health and disease amongst the early UMCA missionaries, 1860-1918

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 65-87

  Jennings, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Disease; Health; Malaria; Missions; Tanganyika; Universities' mission to central africa

Indexed keywords

AFRICA; ARTICLE; CLERGY; GENERAL ASPECTS OF DISEASE; HISTORY; HUMAN; MORTALITY; TANZANIA; UNITED KINGDOM;

AFRICA, CENTRAL; DISEASE; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES; MORTALITY; TANZANIA;

EID: 0036557462     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/15.1.65     Document Type: Review

References (92)

1. P. E. N. Tiridall, History of Central Africa (London, 1967), pp. 102-5.
2. R. Schram, A History of the Nigerian Health Services (Ibadan, 1971), pp. 92-4.
3. Tindall, History of Central Africa, p. 102.
4. M. Vaughan, Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Cambridge, 1991), p. 56.
5. O. Akerele, I. Tabibzadeh, and J. McGilvray, 'A New Role for Medical Missionaries in Africa', WHO Chronicle 30, (1976), 175-80.
6. J. Comaroff, 'The Diseased Heart of Africa: Medicine, Colonialism and the Black Body', in S. Lindenbaum and M. Lock (eds), Knowledge, Power, and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life (Berkeley, 1993), 314.
7. A. Beck, A History of the British Medical Administration of East Africa, 1900-1950 (Cambridge, MA, 1970), p. 16.
8. D. Arnold, Introduction: Disease, Medicine and Empire', in D. Arnold (ed.), Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies (Manchester, 1988), pp. 16-17.
9. Schram, History of the Nigerian Health Services.
10. M. Gelfand, Christian Doctor and Nurse: The History of Medical Missions in South Africa from 1799-1976 (Sandton RSA, 1984);
11. idem, Lakeside Pioneers: Socio-Medial Study of Nyasaland, 1875-1920 (Oxford, 1964).
12. P. Curtin, Death by Migration: Europe's Encounter with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1989);
13. idem, Disease and Empire: The Health of European Troops in the Conquest of Africa (Cambridge, 1998).
14. Arnold, 'Disease Medicine and Empire', p. 7.
15. Curtin, Death by Migration, p. 150.
16. M. Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine, 1859-1914 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 36-59.
17. Curtin, Death by Migration, p. 130.
18. The statistical evidence used here arid in subsequent sections is based on data taken from the UMCA Annual Reports, 1861-1918, Central Africa, and from A. G. Blood, The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, vol. 3, 1933-57 (London, 1962).
19. From lists of missionaries in Central Africa and UMCA Annual Reports. Note that the total number of mission staff was not necessarily the number of personnel in Africa. One year in four was supposed to be spent in the UK on furlough. In 1895, for example, 12 staff were in England at the date of the census (January), and 11 in 1886.
20. R. Howard, A Report to the Medical Board of the Universities' Mission on the Health of the European Missionaries in the Likoma Diocese (1904), p. 20.
21. Central Africa (December 1895), 187.
22. Central Africa (October 1884), 174-5.
23. Central Africa (March 1890), 43.
24. G. Ward, Letters from East Africa, 1895-1897 (London, 1899), p. 77.
25. UMCA, Anual Report (1898), p. 27.
26. Schram, History of the Nigerian Health Services, pp. 92-4.
27. Central Africa (December 1895), 187.
28. H. Waller, Remarks on the Bilious Remittent Fever of Africa: Its Treatment, and Precautions to be Used in Dangerous Localities (London, 1882), p. 3.
29. Ibid., p. 3.
30. Ward, Letters, 31 January 1897, p. 122.
31. Waller, 19 April 1860, cited in UMCA, Annual Report (1860), p. 26.
32. Waller, Remarks on the Bilious Remittent Fever of Africa, p. 3.
33. UMCA, Annual Report, (1874), pp. 7-8.
34. Revd J. P. Farler, 4 February 1896, cited in Central Africa (May 1896), 83-4.
35. Central Africa (October 1883), 155.
36. Central Africa (June 1883), 100.
37. Central Africa (August 1886), 126.
38. Nurses were not involved in advising on sites in general. At least, if this did occur, it did so informally.
39. P. Curtin, The Image, of Africa (Madison, 1964), p. 189.
40. Central Africa (April 1888), 54. Although it is stated that traditional patterns of accommodation were designed to prevent malaria, it is by no means clear that sleeping on raised platforms was to prevent the disease. In many instances, it is likely that the platforms were to protect against pests.
41. Central Africa (March 1883), 45.
42. Farler, 4 February 1896, cited in Central Africa (May 1896), 83-4.
43. Howard, Report to the Medical Board, p. 19;
44. Michael Gelfand, Lakeside Pioneers: Socio-Medial Study of Nyasaland, 1875-1920 (Oxford, 1964), p. 11.
45. UMCA, Medical Hints and Instructions for the Guidance of Residents in Tropical Africa (no date, but pre-1898), p.7.
46. Miss Allan to Drug Fund, 20 June 1883, cited in Central Africa (September 1883), 144.
47. Waller, Remarks on the Bilious Remittent Fever of Africa, p. 11. Author's emphasis.
48. Ibid., p. 11.
49. Curtin, The Image of Africa, p. 197.
50. See 'Adrien Atiman: By Himself (translated and arranged by Col. L. B. Cane), Tanganyika Notes and Records, 21 (1946), 46-76, for details of his life.
51. Curtin, The Image of Africa, p. 197.
52. UMCA, Annual Report (1864), pp. 5-6.
53. As indeed was the decade for East Africa in general. The 1890s was a period of poor health, repeated drought and famine, and considerable mortality amongst the African population.
54. Howard, Report to the Medical Board, p. 18.
55. Minutes of Medical Examination Sub-Committee, 31 October 1923, p. 1, Rhodes House (RH) UMCA A3, 1-126.
56. Gelfand, Lakeside Pioneers, p. 14.
57. F. M. Saudwith to Travers, 8 November 1907, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
58. Oswald A. [?] to Travers, 12 December 1905, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
59. Gelfand, Lakeside Pioneers, p. 14.
60. Sandwith to Travers, 27 March 1911, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
61. Sandwith to Travers, 31 January 1911, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
62. Howard, Report to the Medical Board, p. 16.
63. Sandwith to Travers, 27 January 1911, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
64. Gelfand, Lakeside Pioneers, p. 14.
65. Ibid., p. 15.
66. Revd Kisbey, Central Africa (Decernber 1907), 329.
67. UMCA, Rules of Health (1908).
68. Central Africa (January 1904), 5.
69. Howard, Report to the Medical Board, p. 7.
70. Bishop Hine, To the Members of the Universities Mission in the Diocese of Zanzibar (1904), p. 10, RH UMCA A3, 126-147.
71. UMCA, Rules of Health (1908).
72. Central Africa (August 1905), 220;
73. Central Africa (March 1907), 62.
74. UMCA, Rules of Health (1908).
75. Kisbey, UMCA, Annual Report (1898), 27.
76. Hine, To the Members (1904), p. 10, RH UMCA A3, 126-47.
77. UMCA, Annual Report (1898), pp. 25, 27.
78. Howard, Report to the Medical Board, p. 28.
79. Sandwith to Travers, 27 January 1911, RH UMCA A3 1-126;
80. E. T. Fox, A Missionary Directory for Nurses (Nottingham, 1908), p. 27.
81. Whilst nurses were present in all stations from an earlier period, their impact on decisions regarding policy were limited due to their relative status with the residing priest. Doctors, although subject to the hierarchical structures were, nevertheless, better placed to make their voices heard.
82. Woodward, in UMCA, Annual Report (1899), p. 26.
83. Central Africa (May 1907), 134.
84. Central Africa (May 1912), 124.
85. Dr Howard to Dr Browne, 4 November 1907, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
86. Hine, To the Members (1904), p. 5, RH UMCA A3, 126-47.
87. Sandwith to Travers, 27 January 1911, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
88. Brewerton (?) to Sandwith, 13 October 1907, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
89. Dioceses of Zanzibar and Likoma, 'Prevention of Malaria and Blackwater Fever', p. 1, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
90. Hine, To the Members (1904), p. 5, RH UMCA A3, 126-47.
91. Howard to Browne, 4 November 1907, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.
92. Sandwith, 'Comments on Health Rules', no date given, but probably 1908, RH UMCA A3, 1-126.