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Converting the Hospital: British Missionaries and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Madagascar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2017

Thomas Anderson
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Abstract

This paper examines the attempt of British missionaries on Madagascar to use medicine and the mission hospital as a way to convert the Malagasy people during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In their attempt to educate the Malagasy about the benefits of Western civilization, which was often defined through science as well as Christianity, missionaries were challenged by Malagasy culture and the local environment. To counter the ability of the Malagasy to challenge Western methods through their cultural beliefs and healing practices and so convert the Malagasy to Western ways, British missionaries had to carve out a space isolated from the Malagasy environment. Medicine, particularly the mission hospital, offered a space to champion Western science and Christianity. In their attempt to bring civilization to Madagascar, missionaries directly tied together science and Christianity while domesticating the space of the hospital.

Keywords

London Missionary SocietyMalagasymission hospitalvaccinationwitchcraft
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 2017 , pp. 539 - 554
Copyright
© 2017 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

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Footnotes

*

Thomas J. Anderson is an Assistant Professor at Merrimack College. He specializes in global and environmental histories.

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