The Experiment Must Continue. Melissa Graboyes

Чтение книги онлайн.

       1

      MEDICAL RESEARCH PAST AND PRESENT

       The East African Medical Survey

      As an introduction it is essential to emphasize the difficulties met with in the carrying out of adequate medical surveys in East Africa. Many of the tribes are primitive and intensely suspicious: there is fear of witchcraft and it is not unusual for a request from us for even a specimen of faeces to be met by a firm refusal on the grounds that this specimen of stool is required for the performing of magic rites aimed at bewitching the donor of the specimen. The taking of a specimen of blood is especially resented: in one survey this resentment was so active as to lead to an abandoning of the survey. Medical officers face on one side the criticism that too many refusals will give a biased and incomplete picture, while on the other side they may be criticized for stirring up trouble in the areas in which they work. Ideally it is essential to carry out repeated exams of the excreta and of the blood . . . from each of the 4,000 natives on whom medical exams have been carried out. Any attempt to enforce this impossible standard would quickly arouse such deep resentment among the people that there would be no alternative but to abandon work. The most that could be expected is one specimen each of stools, urines and bloods from a large proportion of the natives examined and even this calls for much diplomacy and knowledge of the African way of life. Much credit is due to the medical officers for their perseverance even in the face of personal danger, as has twice been the case.¹

      Lieutenant Colonel William Laurie, the first director of the East African Medical Survey (EAMS), paints a fairly bleak—if accurate—picture of medical research in the region in the 1940s and 1950s. He characterizes it through the difficulties, fear, suspicions, refusals, and resentment that surrounded the work; even a simple request for a specimen of feces could be met by a “firm refusal.” Conflict and misunderstandings were commonplace and, from his perspective, there was little to celebrate other than his brave workers. Laurie’s honesty and frustration also indicate that, although this medical research happened in a colonial context and under unequal power conditions, Africans were no mere subjects of medical research. They were active participants in these encounters, forcing projects to change and adapt based on what they deemed acceptable. In doing so, Africans shaped the practical and ethical norms in the literal and figurative space of the “field.”

      The post–World War II project was part of what СКАЧАТЬ