Race, Gender and Medical Practice in Early Colonial West Africa

Official early colonial medical policies and practices in West Africa were often largely aimed at preserving European lives, while African medical practices were either ridiculed, or targeted for extraction. Edinburgh medical school alumni serving in the colonies were no exception in enacting racial and gender biases in relation to the pay and prospects of West African staff in colonial medical facilities and to the treatment of West African patients. Given the lack of access and a legitimate fear of treatment under early colonial medical regimes, most West Africans continued to seek medical treatments from West African specialists, whose practices were rooted in African knowledge systems. However, West African medical culture was not static, although its change under colonialism has largely remained unexamined. Based on fieldwork, as well as archival and museum sources, this paper considers how West African medical culture changed, especially in response to the racial and gender biases inherent in early colonial policy and practice. It will demonstrate that African medicine travelled vast distances along West African coasts and rivers, facilitated by colonial transport systems, and that transfers of medical materials and practices marked dynamic cultural intersections between different ethnic communities and knowledge systems in early colonial West Africa.