Technical innovation in agriculture preceded that in mining, and the value of colonial agricultural production exceeded that of diamonds throughout the nineteenth century. After the Cape received responsible government in 1874 a colonial scientific bureaucracy was gradually expanded to include a veterinary surgeon, a Department of Agriculture, and a state botanist, geologist, entomologist and marine biologist. The discovery of diamonds in the 1860s and Witwatersrand gold in the 1880s reshaped the contours of race and science. Mining became reliant on increasingly sophisticated technology and on cheap black labour. Rapid growth in the mining sector has been analysed by historians in terms of the relationship between capital and labour. Scientific and technological innovations were also critical: applied geology, water pumps, explosives, stamping gear and the recently discovered cyanide process for gold extraction. The geostrategic importance of southern Africa became a point of growing competition, and the borders of a unitary South African state in 1910 emerged out of wars of conquest against African societies and intense conflict between English- and Dutch-speaking citizens. Imperial conquest and expansion were in turn associated with rapid technological change: steamships, railways, transatlantic cables and breech loading rifles. Together these constituted a ‘full-blown socio-technical imaginary’.

The ICRC was founded in 1863 and, in 1864, the first Geneva convention was created. It states that wounded and sick in armed conflict should receive assistance. They and the medical staff caring for them are protected by the emblem of the Red Cross, meaning that they must not be attacked.

War surgery is a major activity of the ICRC. From 1979, independent hospitals have been set up by the ICRC for wounded from conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Sudan, and more than 100 000 wounded have received treatment. Treatment is always free of charge and medical needs are the only reasons for admission, so both soldiers and fighters from different groups are treated.

Expatriate doctors and nurses are civilians, doing missions as volunteers and usually staying between three months and a year. Most come from Europe, but many are from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Many have no previous experience of treating weapon wounds. Basic equipment is provided, but based on the long experience of ICRC, guidelines and treatment protocols have been created with the aim of saving life and limbs and rehabilitating the wounded. Even with these limited resources, hospital mortality is only 2.2–6.4%.