Julia Wells
[British Central Africa] is a country where Europeans can live healthily by the careful practice of the rules of sanitation and hygiene.” – John Murray, Guide to Health in Africa (London: The African World, 1912).
Tropical medicine of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is remembered today primarily for its ground-breaking medical discoveries. The identification of the malaria parasite and its mosquito vector, the development of commercially synthesised and mass-produced prophylactic quinine, and advances in the treatment of sleeping sickness, for example, all helped to define tropical medicine as the epitome of modern medical science. [Read more…] about Dressing well for going troppo
Alyssa Kennedy, studying Medical History, has been examining the late nineteenth century casebooks of the Dunedin hospital held at Archives New Zealand (Dunedin Branch). She chose to examine uterine complaints. Her findings remind us of the different reproductive experience of women in the past.
Recently I talked at the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival as part of a panel of health practitioners who write. Called Word Balm, our session set out to explore what language contributes to the practice of medicine. At the end of a wide-ranging conversation, chair Barbara Brookes called for questions from the audience. A woman raised her hand.
