The Blessings of Medicine? Patient Characteristics and Health Outcomes in a Ugandan Mission Hospital, 1908–19701

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9333380
AutoresDoyle (0000-0003-1420-3434, University of Leeds), Shane Doyle (University of Leeds), Felix Meier Zu Selhausen (0000-0001-8593-7983, Mountains of the Moon University, autor correspondente), Jacob Weisdorf (0000-0003-4434-115X, University of Southern Denmark)
Ano2019
Volume33
Fascículo3
Páginas946-980
Data de publicação2019-01-04
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial History of Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0951-631X • E-ISSN: 1477-4666
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/shm/hky125
OpenAlexW2921666907
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas17

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

Family medicine · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Medicine