Healing the 'African Body' in the Age of Abolition? British Medicine in West Africa, circa 1800-1860

Abstract

<p>This investigation provides an in-depth examination of British and African interactions in British West Africa within the field of health and medicine, circa 1800- 1860. It examines how Britons perceived, created, and understood Africans and their bodies during a period of extensive and significant change. This assists our understanding of one of the historical roots of racialized medicine, provide insight into British perceptions of and interaction with overseas peoples, and illuminates how Britons developed or expanded notions about Africans, their bodies, and their health during a relatively neglected period for relevant scholarship. It also examines African responses to European medicine in a variety of contexts. In order to gain a clearer understanding of the intersection of race and medicine during this period, the study examines how leading theorists of race formulated and constructed the African body, explores how missionaries from the Church Missionary Society and Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society understood health and medicine, examines the British medical system established in West Africa and particularly the ways in which it handled the care of liberated Africans, and studies the health of European and African personnel in the armed forces stationed in West Africa. The thesis emphasizes the multiplicity both in forms of medical practice and in approach to ' the African body. '</p>