“We Have to Wait for Riots and Disturbances,” 1931–1941
This chapter demonstrates the recrudescence of neglect during and after the Great Depression. Waves of civil and labor unrest compelled the Colonial Office and Treasury to raise levels of health-care spending in many imperial holdings. But Nyasaland, viewed as a relatively insignificant and peaceful backwater, received little of this funding. A reformist colonial physician, H.S. de Boer, advocated for expanded government health services for subject Africans, but London officials largely dismissed these proposals as inappropriate applications of metropolitan living standards to colonial settings. Even new rhetoric and legislation in support of colonial welfare at the start of the Second World War did not bring meaningful improvements in health care for Nyasaland’s subject Africans.