'Medicine,' declared a French imperialist, is the 'sole excuse for colonialism.' If colonial rule had its harsh and negative side, the work of the doctor ennobled an justified it. Historians, even nationalist writers, have echoed this view. The white man's medicine at least was always welcome. But was it as rational and humanitarian as is commonly supposed, one of imperialism's 'undeniable benefits? Was there no doubt or suspicion? Might it not in fact have been another weapon in the armoury of alien rule?For too long on the margins of the history of empire, the study of disease and medicine has begun to move centre-stage. This book investigates the purposes, nature and impact of Western medicine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It ranges widely, from the Belgians in the Congo to the Americans in the Philippines, from the treatment of European 'lunatics' in India to the 'discovery' of Third World malnutrition. But the central concern is the way in which colonial doctors and imperial medicine shaped the interaction between rulers and ruled.At first largely confined to the needs of Europeans abroad, Western medicine rose in the late nineteenth century to global assertiveness. At a time of expanding empires medical science gave imperial administrations a sense of purpose, a confidence in their capacity to transform entire societies in the light of their own notions of progress, sanitation and science. Yet they were held back as much by political constraints and cultural resistance as by technical limitations. By 1930 the first, 'heroic' age of Western medical intervention was over.This volume points the way to a major reappraisal. It will be of particular importance to students of imperialism and the history of medicine. It also raises issues relevant to current debates over health and development in the Third World. It sheds fresh light on the politics of imperialism and the anthropology of medical belief and practice.
