9 - Disease in West African History

Summary

Introduction

Disease, together with the environment, set some of the important parameters within which West African societies and communities have operated, reflecting the challenges of both settlement and ecology, as well as documenting the history of contact between peoples. The African environment, and especially the tropical rainforests, supports a mass of bacteria and parasites, where even single-celled organisms can flourish. Indeed, for William H. McNeill, the migration of the first Africans from the tropical climes of their homeland - the cradle of humans - to the temperate climes of Europe, marked the beginning of an important developmental divide:

In leaving tropical environments behind, our ancestors also escaped many of the parasites and disease organisms to which their predecessors and tropical contemporaries were accustomed. Health and vigor improved accordingly, a multiplication of human numbers assumed a hitherto unparalleled scale.

For McNeill, the disease epidemiology of the tropics represents a burden on development:

That, more than anything else, is why Africa remained backward in the development of civilization [emphasis added 1 when compared to temperate lands (or tropical zones like those of the Americas), where prevailing ecosystems were less elaborated and correspondingly less inimical to simplification by human action.

Defining ‘civilization’ from the Western perspective has always been a messy business, and the inherent problems in the above statement are apparent. This statement also creates the erroneous impression that the only factor Africans have had to battle with in the quest for their development is the environment, eliding the pivotal role that people - including outsiders - have played in the political economy of Africa. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel uses science in a historical context to illuminate the processes of human development from an even starting line, not just to rationalize the contemporary state of affairs by reading back into history. But McNeill was right about the rich biodiversity of the tropics and the presence of disease vectors that have afflicted humans and their livestock.