The Legacies of French Colonial Medicine

Between 1921 and 1956, French colonial governments organized medical campaigns to treat and prevent sleeping sickness. Villagers were forcibly examined and injected with medications with severe, sometimes fatal, side effects. We digitized 30 years of archival records to document the locations of campaign visits at a granular geographic level for five central African countries. We find that greater campaign exposure reduces vaccination rates and trust in medicine, as measured by willingness to consent to a blood test. We examine relevance for present-day health initiatives; World Bank projects in the health sector are less successful in areas with greater exposure. (JEL F54, I12, I15, I18, N37, N47, Z13)

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KEEPING THE CITY TOTALLY CLEAN: YELLOW FEVER AND THE POLITICS OF PREVENTION IN COLONIAL SAINT-LOUIS-DU-SÉNÉGAL, 1850–1914

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853703008636 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 45 (2) ◽

pp. 183-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

KALALA NGALAMULUME

Keyword(s):

Yellow Fever ◽

Parasitic Diseases ◽

Colonial Medicine ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

Saint Louis ◽

Life And Death ◽

French Colonial ◽

State Of Affairs ◽

The City ◽

Urban Working

This article explores the ways in which French colonial authorities met the life and death challenge represented by the re-emergence of yellow fever epidemics in Saint-Louis-du-Sénégal at a time when physicians knew very little about the etiology, diagnosis, transmission and treatment of most infectious and parasitic diseases. The discussion focuses on changing strategies and policies designed to address yellow fever threats, the attitudes and priorities of the authorities, the limits of ‘colonial medicine’ and the responses of people affected by sanitary measures. The article argues that because of the ignorance of the etiology and epidemiology of yellow fever, policies were misdirected and did not achieve their primary goals. Even after the introduction of germ theory, the gap between medical thinking and practice persisted for another decade. The African urban working class and underclass were the first victims of this state of affairs. The article also examines the conflict between the interests of public health, commerce and privacy rights.

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French Colonial Soldiers in German Captivity during World War II

10.1017/cbo9781107297869 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Raffael Scheck

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

World War ◽

French Colonial

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The French Colonial Myth and Constitution-Making in the Fourth Republic, by D. Bruce MarshallThe French Colonial Myth and Constitution-Making in the Fourth Republic, by D. Bruce Marshall. Yale University Press, 1973, New Haven and London. 363 pp.

Canadian Journal of History ◽

10.3138/cjh.9.1.115 ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 115-116

Author(s):

Richard M. Brace

Keyword(s):

New Haven ◽

Yale University ◽

Fourth Republic ◽

French Colonial ◽

Bruce Marshall ◽

Constitution Making

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The Return of N’Guyen Van Binh

Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques ◽

10.3167/hrrh.2020.460203 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 25-42

Author(s):

Geoff Read

Keyword(s):

Third Republic ◽

Forced Labor ◽

Political Prisoner ◽

Second Empire ◽

Indentured Servitude ◽

The Third ◽

Original Sentence ◽

French Colonial ◽

One Year

This article explores the case of N’Guyen Van Binh, a South Vietnamese political prisoner exiled for his alleged role in “Poukhombo’s Rebellion” in Cambodia in 1866. Although Van Binh’s original sentence of exile was reduced to one year in prison he was nonetheless deported and disappeared into the maw of the colonial systems of indentured servitude and forced labor; he likely did not survive the experience. He was thus the victim of injustice and his case reveals the at best haphazard workings of the French colonial bureaucracy during the period of transition from the Second Empire to the Third Republic. While the documentary record is entirely from the perspective of the colonizers, reading between the lines we can also learn something about Van Binh himself including his fierce will to resist his colonial oppressors.

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