Magyar László szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 174-177. (Budapest, 2001)
TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - Máthé-Shires László: Who Lives Where? British Anti-Malaria Policy in Southern-Nigeria (1899-1912)
eventually after their amalgamation from 1906 onwards, the whole of Nigeria was the largest and most important West African British colony. As the three major regions represented different administrative, political and economical approaches, the anti-malaria and sanitation policy differed accordingly. Foucault's structure of medicine as a representative sphere of political control becomes obvious when the separation of European and African living environment is highlighted, since in the name of medical reasons, serious debates were launched concerning indeed the most vital elements of daily life, that is who can live where and who authorises it? The following pages will describe these different, interacting and changing attitudes, depending to a great extent on the actual administrators, on the environment and perceived space of the region and on its earlier history in the British colonial empire. Lagos, 1899—1906 The colony of Lagos was a peculiar settlement around the turn of the century in the sense that it had one of the longest established and continuous administrations in British West Africa, dating back as far as 1861. The colony consisted of the town of Lagos with an indigenous population of about 40,000 people. The surrounding small villages and clusters of houses followed the trade routes leading into the north of the country, to Yorubaland. Lagos was a prosperous trading post resulting a growing amount of surplus income but with a long history of official neglect. 15 As the busiest port in West Africa besides, perhaps, Freetown, it attracted a growing number of Europeans who encountered the hardships of the backwater colonial entourage. As a result of the neglect and lack of public projects like draining or water plants, the town achieved a negative fame it never really aspired for. William MacGregor was the governor of Lagos between 1898 and 1904. His background was atypical for a colonial governor's as he was among the few at the time who had a professional education — he was a trained physician — rather than the usual Cambridge or Oxford degree. 16 His appointment to be the governor of Lagos was rather untypical at the time. The medical branch of the imperial service had a low esteemed reputation throughout the nineteenth century. 17 Appointing a member of the establishment from this field hence could easily represent the low status of Lagos among the colonial settlements at the time. MacGregor himself expressed grave disappointments and fears upon being posted to West Africa. His earlier experiences however with colonial public health policy in tropical territories, like Fiji and New Guinea, naturally made him very sensitive towards similar 15 Brown, Spencer H. "Colonialism on the cheap: a tale of two army surgeons in Lagos, Samuel Rowe and Frank Simpson, 1862—1882", in The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 27, 5. (1994), 551—588. and Thomas Gale,. "Lagos: The history of British colonial neglect of traditional African cities", in African Urban Studies, 5 (1979), 11—24. 16 MacGregor's period preceded the professionalisation of the colonial service. He was still appointed as the governor of Lagos instead of the later practice where vacant positions had to go through an application process. Kubicek, Robert W. The Administration of Imperialism: Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office. (Durham, 1969), 45. 17 Haynes, Douglas Melvin, 'Social status and Imperial Service: Tropical Medicine and the British Medical Profession in the Nineteenth Century', in Arnold, David (ed.) Warm climates and mestern medicine: The emergence of tropical medicine, 1500—1900. (Amsterdam — Atlanta, 1996), 208—227 but esp. 209—212.
