French West Africa adopted mosquito eradication as an innovation against malaria

Evidence

This confirms William Cohen’s findings that the French did not use prophylactic quinine much in this period, although it challenges his claim “that the French means of combating malaria had not changed dramatically since the begin- ning of the nineteenth century” (Cohen, “Malaria and French Imperialism,” p. 29 ). Mosquito eradication was a new policy, which all colonial powers were adopting at this time. Curtin, Death by Migration, pp. 131-140. Nev- ertheless, I concur with Cohen’s larger point, that colonialism helped to re- duce malaria in French West Africa, rather than the reduction of malarial incidence leading to the French conquest of the region. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 973

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Relevant to the causal-relationship thread of how French public health policy shaped the colonial encounter.

Related

• French colonialism reduced malaria in West Africa rather than malaria decline enabling French conquest (similarity 0.94)
• French colonial policy shifted to mosquito eradication rather than prophylactic quinine (similarity 0.92)
• French colonial officials fought tropical disease mainly to protect trade (similarity 0.81)
• Yellow fever and malaria outbreaks threatened West African trade. (similarity 0.81)
• West African colonial health shifts predated and drove metropolitan policy (similarity 0.81)
• Bacteriological confidence and scarce resources undermined French colonial sanitation (similarity 0.80)
• French colonial medical policy subordinated African health care to economic development (similarity 0.79)
• Major tropical disease mechanisms were identified within one decade (similarity 0.79)
• French colonial medicine shifted to mobile units staffed by trained African auxiliaries. (similarity 0.79)
• The germ theory of disease drove French hygiene priorities in West Africa (similarity 0.79)
• French West Africa realized the medical ideal metropolitan France had rejected (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial medicine prioritized European diseases over African ones (similarity 0.78)