North Meets South in Medical Missionary Work: Dr Neil Macvicar, African Belief, and Western Reaction1

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a medical missionary of the Scottish Presbyterian Lovedale mission in the Eastern Cape during the first few decades of the twentieth century, Dr Neil Macvicar presents an interesting case study in his apprehension of and reaction to traditional African concepts of ill-health causality and healing. Convinced that such thought was wholly inaccurate and detrimental to individual lives and South African societies (both black and white), Macvicar worked to enact sweeping changes. Coupled with his aim to eradicate such belief were efforts to replace it with Western-based scientific conceptions of disease dissemination and preventative health care. Macvicar sought to enhance the spread of Western understandings of health care and supplant traditional health practitioners (who he termed ‘witch doctors’, ‘diviners’ and ‘herbalists’) by training up an educated elite, primarily in the form of African nurses and hospital assistants. In addition, he attempted to educate the broader populace on matters of public health, preventative health, and nutrition through such means as health literature and the formation of the South African Native Health Society. Central to understanding his work against traditional African concepts of disease and ill health treatment, I contend, was his heavily scientific background which had an equally important role in shaping his own Christian belief system.