The Steamer Parish: The Rise and Fall of Missionary Medicine on an African FrontierIn the mid-1800s, a group of High Anglicans formed the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA). Inspired by Dr. David Livingstone, they felt a special calling to bring the Church, education, and medical care to rural Africans. To deliver services across a huge, remote area, the UMCA relied on steamer ships that were sent from England and then reassembled on Lake Malawi. By the mid-1920s, the UMCA had built a chain of mission stations that spread across four hundred miles. In The Steamer Parish, Charles M. Good Jr. traces the Mission's history and its lasting impact on public health care in south-central Africa-and shows how steam and medicine, together with theology, allowed the Mission to impose its will, indelibly, on hundreds of thousands of people. What's more, many of the issues he discusses-rural development, the ecological history of disease, and competition between western and traditional medicine-are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago. |
Contents
Christian Medical Missions and African Societies | 1 |
The Lake Malawi Region Forces of Change in the Late Nineteenth Century | 50 |
The Return of the UMCA to Malawi Technology and Political Relations in the Quest for Permanent Influence | 73 |
Expanding the Steamer Parish Ten Thousand Square Miles for Mission | 107 |
Steamer Technology Local Ecology and Regional Economy | 176 |
Health in SubSaharan Africa and Malawi on the Eve of Colonization | 223 |
Medical Services for Missionaries and Africans | 265 |
Gauging Change African Health and Wellbeing | 311 |
Treatment and Control Limits and Contradictions of Science and Missionary Medicine | 373 |
The Rise and Fall of Missionary Medicine | 415 |
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African health Archdeacon arrival became Bishop Blantyre boiler British Central Africa Charles Janson Chauncy Maples Christian Church coast colonial cultural decades Diocese Diocese of Nyasaland disease doctor drugs East Africa endemic epidemic European evangelism healing hookworm Howard ibid Ilala indigenous infection inpatients Johnson King and King Kota Kota labor Lake Malawi lakeside leprosy Likoma Island Likwenu Liuli Livingstone London malaria Malawians Malindi Masasi medical missions Medical Officer medical services miles missionaries missionary medicine Monkey Bay Mponda's Msumba Muslim native Ngoni nurses Nyanja Nyasa Nyasaland Protectorate outpatient patients percent places population Portuguese Portuguese East Africa practices precolonial protectorate protectorate's public health region remained reported reportedly Rhodesia schools Shiré sick smallpox social societies sphere staff stations steamer steamer parish Tanganyika territory transport treatment tropical ulcers UMCA Ann UMCA missionaries UMCA's USPG villages visits Wigan Winspear witchcraft women World yaws Zanzibar Zomba