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Title
The Blessings of Medicine? Patient Characteristics and Health Outcomes in a Ugandan Mission Hospital, 1908'1970 |
Full text
https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/575862 |
Date
2020 |
Author(s)
Doyle, Shane; Meier Zu Selhausen, F.P.; Weisdorf, Jacob |
Abstract
This article sheds new light on the impact and experience of western biomedicine in colonial Africa. We use patient registers from Western Uganda's earliest mission hospital to explore whether and how Christian conversion and mission education affected African health behaviour. A data set of 18,600 admissions permits analysis of patients' age, sex, residence, religion, diagnoses, duration of hospitalisation and treatment outcomes. We document Toro Hospital's substantial geographic reach, trace evolving treatment practices and highlight significant variation in hospital-based disease incidence between the early colonial and early postcolonial periods. We observe no relationship between numeracy and health outcomes, nor religion-specific effects concerning hygiene-related infections. Christian conversion was associated with superior cure rates and shorter length of stay and with lower incidence of skin diseases and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). However, our findings indicate that STI incidence was linked to morality campaigns and that clinicians' diagnoses were influenced by assumptions around religious groups' sexual behaviour. |
Subject(s)
Leerstoelgroep Agrarische en Milieugeschiedenis; Rural and Environmental History; Agrarische en Milieugeschiedenis; Rural and Environmental History; Wageningen School of Social Sciences; Wageningen School of Social Sciences; WASS; WASS |
Language
en |
Relation
https://edepot.wur.nl/538571 |
Type of publication
Article/Letter to editor |
Format
text/html |
Source
Social History of Medicine 33 (2020) 3; ISSN: 0951-631X |
Rights
Wageningen University & Research |
Identifier
10.1093/shm/hky125 |
Repository
Wageningen - University of Wageningen
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Added to C-A: 2021-01-11;13:12:22 |
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