Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and AfricaDavid Hardiman Missionary medicine flourished during the period of high European imperialism, from the late-1800s to the 1960s. Although the figure of mission doctor - exemplified by David Livingstone and Albert Schweitzer - exercised a powerful influence on the Western imagination during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, few historians have examined the history of this important aspect of the missionary movement. This collection of articles on Asia and Africa uses the extensive archives that exist on medical missions to both enrich and challenge existing histories of the clinic in colonial territories - whether of the dispensary, the hospital, the maternity home or leprosy asylum. Some of the major themes addressed within include the attitude of different Christian denominations towards medical mission work, their differing theories and practices, how the missionaries were drawn into contentious local politics, and their attitude towards supernatural cures. Leprosy, often a feature of such work, is explored, as well as the ways in which local people perceived disease, healing and the missionaries themselves. Also discussed is the important contribution of women towards mission medical work. Healing Bodies, Saving Souls will be of interest not only to students and historians but also the wider reader as it aims to define the place of missionary within the overall history of medicine. |
Contents
1 | |
Professionalising the Rural Medical Mission in Weixian | 115 |
African Medical Personnel of the Universities Mission | 193 |
The Place of the Medical Mission in Maternal | 227 |
The Social Dimensions of Christian Leprosy Work | 281 |
Administering Leprosy Control | 307 |
Notes on Contributors | 333 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adivasis administration African Alice Memorial argued became began believed Bhils Birkett Bishop of Northern Bishop's Correspondence British Caine cannabis cannabis drugs Canton Capuchin Catholic child health child welfare China Chinese Repository Christian Church Missionary Society clinic College colonial Comaroff converts cure disease dispensary drugs Eritrea established European evangelical exorcist funding Government healing History Hong Kong Hong Kong Government Ibid IHDC India indigenous institutions Kano Katete Katsina leper leprosaria leprosy leprosy control leprosy sufferers London Missionary Society Macao maternal and child medical mission Medical Missionary Society mission doctors mission hospital mission medicine missionary medicine Msoro Muslim native NAZ ZAC Nigeria nineteenth century Northern Rhodesia nurses Ogoja opium orderlies organisation Parker patients population practice Presbyterian region religious Report Shandong social St Francis staff station Tanganyika tradition treatment UMCA University Press USPG/UMCA Vaughan village Weixian Western medicine women Wong