Two Centuries of Health Care in Dominica

Abstract

The title of this book might lead the reader to expect a little bit of many things. Instead, one gets an in depth presentation of many things important in past centuries and important today, and in a style of citations from the early sources, intercalated with the author's comments. This has been carefully engineered so that one has a continually developing story, up to the present time.There was a favorable circumstance making a cohesive story possible. Dominica is small, less than 300 square miles, and with a population limited to a series of small villages and plantations on the coastal fringe, the interior being formidably mountainous and forested. This population for centuries has been below 20,000, by 1901 had risen to 28,894 and today may be three times that. Medical care had been in the hands of French and British practitioners in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and few records exist of this period.