French colonial medicine shifted to mobile units staffed by trained African auxiliaries.

Evidence

In addition to combating such devastating diseases as syphilis, tuberculosis, leprosy, sleeping sickness, and malaria among the colonized, Paris innovated in another way. It demanded a shift from individualized curative medical care, based in hospitals, dispensaries, and maternities, to mobile medical units staffed by indigenous auxiliaries-doctors, midwives, nurses, vaccinators, and sanitary guards-supervised by Europeans. They would go directly to the masses and map the incidence of disease, innoculate and distribute serums, and demonstrate modern prophylactic methods and puericulture. Demographic statistics were also to be kept. Surveillance, and education and hygiene at home, held the key to the “sanitary control” and “physical regeneration of the races.” — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 772

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents a concrete organizational innovation: mobile medical outreach replacing fixed institutions, using indigenous auxiliary staff.
• XREF: Relates to the chapter’s broader theme of how republican France deployed African intermediaries to extend its civilizing/ administrative reach - connects to earlier discussion of African auxiliaries in governance.