Beyond the State ─ The Colonial Medical Service in British Africa

The Colonial Medical Service was the personnel section of the Colonial Service, employing the doctors who tended to the health of both the colonial staff and the local populations of the British Empire. Although the Service represented the pinnacle of an elite government agency, solely serving official British imperial ambitions, its reach in practice stretched far beyond the state, with the members of the African service collaborating, formally and informally, with a range of other non-governmental groups, such as missionaries or those with commercial ties to the continent. Inevitably, the African Colonial Medical Service was regularly susceptible to outward pressures from non-governmental healthcare providers and its response was far less uniform in approach and constitution than the Colonial Office would have its public believe.

In this timely collection a group of distinguished colonial historians have been brought together to illustrate central themes that illuminate the diversity and active collaborations to be found in the untidy reality of government medical provision. The authors present important case studies in a series of fascinating essays covering former British colonial dependencies in Africa, including Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar. These studies reveal many new insights into colonial policy and the ways in which colonial doctors dealt with day-to-day reality during the height of imperial rule in Africa, providing essential reading for scholars and students of colonial history, medical history and colonial administration.

Anna Greenwood is Assistant Professor in the History of British Imperialism at the University of Nottingham