The Cape Doctor in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History

Abstract

Harriet Deacon, Howard Phillips, and Elizabeth van Heyningen (eds), Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi (Clio Medica 74/The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine), 2004. Pp. vi+318. €75 (hbk). ISBN: 90–420–1064–9. The prevailing spring and early summer wind, otherwise known as the ‘Cape Doctor', supposedly cleans the air of the Cape and blows away disease and pollution. It also helps to keep the vegetation green through the heat of summer and is a vital factor in the pollination of many medicinal herbs and plants unique to the Cape. The Cape Doctor is therefore a most appropriate title for this long-awaited and excellent addition to the Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine as it blows away many of the traditional, whiggish historical accounts of medical professionalization whilst clarifying our understanding of the evolution of health policies and practices including forms of medical and cultural pluralism. The book is structured on a roughly chronological basis, describing the development of the medical profession in South Africa and, through this, presenting the wider historical context of folk and indigenous medicine and of other alternative therapies. Until recently, the history of indigenous healing has been largely neglected with the exception of some anthropological background work. However, this volume provides fascinating insights through studies of the profession's battles against practitioners who fell outside its own licensing requirements. The editors have succeeded in sensitively bringing together an impressive group of historians and combining their expertise to contextualize the history of the medical profession in the South African Cape. The result provides an unusual yet well-balanced mixture of social, political, and economic history covering the period from the British take-over of the Cape in 1806 to the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Each addresses a number of inter-related themes and issues.