Algerian patients conceive disease as single assault requiring one-shot cure

Evidence

The sociological theory is that the “native” entertains the firm hope of being cured once and for all. The native, in fact, sees the ailment, not as progressing little by little but as assaulting the individual in a single swoop, so that the effectiveness of a remedy would not depend so much on its consistent, periodic, and progressive repetition but on its total impact, its immediate effect; this accounts for the natives’ preference for injections. According to this theory, the doctor would always have to heal at a single sitting. Pilgrimages to a sanctuary, the making of amulets or marks written on a piece of paper—these are therapies that are applied immediately with the maximum effectiveness. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 420

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the non-Western model of illness as total event versus gradual progression, grounding native preference for injections.
• XREF: Parallels structuralist/modernization-theory debates on ‘traditional’ versus Western medical rationality; echoes Lévy-Bruhl’s ‘participation mystique’ critique Fanon elsewhere rejects. — connects to: Algerians refused hospitalization until death was nearly certain

Related

• Algerians refused hospitalization until death was nearly certain (similarity 0.81)
• Algerian refusal of hospital care delayed treatment until death was nearly certain. (similarity 0.81)
• Algerians rejected colonial medicine not from ignorance but as resistance (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Algerians refused hospitalization until death was nearly certain #expands (0.60)