Search for: All records

This essay traces the historical relationship between the construction of the Nile River and the prevalence of disease in Egypt in the long twentieth century, with an eye to the relevance of this history to other regions on the African continent impacted by the construction of large dams. Beginning in the second decade of the nineteenth century and stretching through the 1970s, the Nile River underwent a dramatic process of transformation. Two large dams–the 1902 Khazan Aswan and the Aswan High Dam–were constructed on the river. Networks of perennial irrigation canals facilitated the practice of year-round agricultural production and the High Dam provided electricity. The remaking of Egypt’s riparian ecologies also had important implications for the health of Egypt’s population as these ecologies were associated with new landscapes of disease and approaches to biomedical treatment. 

This piece explores the history of medicine in Egypt, the roots of an Egyptian practice of biomedicine in particular, through its historiography. In the period after World War II, the term “biomedicine” came to describe a practice of medicine defined by the close relations among clinicians, biological laboratory research, and the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and the United States. The history of medicine in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa has long possessed close links to that in regions of Europe. In Egypt too, biomedicine has deep historical roots shaped by the influence of the nineteenth-century Ottoman-Egyptian state, the experience of colonialism, and the anti-colonial objectives of the post-colonial Egyptian state in the second half of the twentieth century. These influences were particularly important in relation to the treatment of schistosomiasis, one of Egypt’s top-ranking health problems of the twentieth century. The history of schistosomiasis demonstrates the gaps in the historiography of medicine in modern Egypt as well as how we might begin to consider the emergence of biomedical knowledge and theory at sites in Global South. 

This piece explores the history of medicine in Egypt, the roots of an Egyptian practice of biomedicine in particular, through its historiography. In the period after World War II, the term “biomedicine” came to describe a practice of medicine defined by the close relations among clinicians, biological laboratory research, and the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and the United States. The history of medicine in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa has long possessed close links to that in regions of Europe. In Egypt too, biomedicine has deep historical roots shaped by the influence of the nineteenth-century Ottoman‐Egyptian state, the experience of colonialism, and the anti‐colonial objectives of the post‐colonial Egyptian state in the second half of the twentieth century. These influences were particularly important in relation to the treatment of schistosomiasis, one of Egypt's top-ranking health problems of the twentieth century. The history of schistosomiasis demonstrates the gaps in the historiography of medicine in modern Egypt as well as how we might begin to consider the emergence of biomedical knowledge and theory at sites in Global South. 

N.A. 

Book Review of "Seeds of Power: Explorations in Ottoman Environmental History, edited by Onur İnal and Yavuz Köse."