Megan Vaughan 
Curing Their Ills 
Colonial Power and African Illness

Curing their Ills traces the history of encounters between
European medicine and African societies in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Vaughan’s detailed examination of medical
discourse of the period reveals its shifting and fragmented nature,
highlights its use in the creation of the colonial subject in
Africa, and explores the conflict between its pretensions to
scientific neutrality and its political and cultural motivations.

The book includes chapters on the history of psychiatry in
Africa, on the treatment of venereal diseases, on the memoirs of
European ‘Jungle Doctors’, and on mission medicine. In exploring
the representations of disease as well as medical practice,
Curing their Ills makes a fascinating and original
contribution to both medical history and the social history of
Africa.

Tabella dei contenuti

Preface.

1. Introduction.

2. Rats’ Tails and Trypanosomes.

3. The Great Dispensary in the Sky.

4. Without the Camp.

5. The Madman and the Medicine Men.

6. Syphilis and Sexuality.

7. Hippo Happenings.

8. ‘Seeing is Believing’.

9. Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Circa l’autore

Megan Vaughan has written other books, including The Story of an African Famine which was very well reviewed.