The Colonial Disease

This is a study of the early colonial history of Zaire (formerly the Belgian Congo), with special emphasis on disease and medicine. Using the example of sleeping sickness epidemics, Dr. Lyons discusses the ways that Western medicine and its practitioners came in conflict with African ideas and health practices. It is the author's contention that while the Europeans had brought scientific inquiry and Western bio-medicine to Africa, they had also introduced a harsh, repressive political system coupled with a ruthlessly exploitative economic system that led to the introduction of new diseases and the exacerbation of those already present. Sleeping sickness captured the colonial imagination to such an extent that it continued to dominate medical attention for decades, to independence and beyond. This case study in the social history of the disease and its treatment in early colonial Africa suggests that the "colonial disease" and its impact was a consequence of the Western civilizing mission.