Medicine and Public Health in Africa

This course explores the major debates in the history of medicine in Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and highlights the coexistence of a variety of healing traditions and medical understandings across the continent. It will focus on the following questions: What are some of the ways Africans practice and understand medicine? How have these practices interacted with other medical systems? What impact did colonialism have on the production of medical knowledge? How were practices and treatments evaluated and deemed effective? By whom and on what grounds? And how have independent African states addressed these critical issues?