'The Pestilence That Walketh in Darkness'. Imperial Health, Gender and Images of SouthAfrica c. 1880-1910Author(s): Morag BellSource: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 3 (1993),pp. 327-341Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute ofBritish Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/622463 .Accessed: 03/02/2011 04:32

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing and The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) arecollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers.

http://www.jstor.org

327

'The pestilence that walketh in darkness'.

Imperial health, gender and images of South

Africa c. 1880-1910

MORAG BELL

Reader, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics. LE 1 3TU

Revised MS received 16 February 1993

ABSTRACT In exploring the relationship between the physical environment, human survival and cultural transformation, this paper brings together three themes in the history of development thought. It discusses the links between geography and imperial emigration from Britain during the years surrounding 1900. Reference is made to the ways in which theories of acclimatization were used to support a selective process of British overseas settlement in the interests of 'progress'. In the case of South Africa, attention focuses on climate's therapeutic role in the prospect of improved health. It is argued that within this region an essential part of human acclimatization was the creation of a landscape of social control. This involved harnessing modern science and technology together with the supposedly unique skills of women.

KEY WORDS: Environment, Science, Imperialism, Race, Gender, South Africa

INTRODUCTION

The great wave of imperial emigration from Britain at the end of the nineteenth century coincided with the establishment of geography as a discipline in univer- sities. Debates over the relationship between world climates, British overseas settlement, human health and acclimatization helped structure the content and character of geographic science in Britain and Empire at this time. Geographical societies provided an important forum for these debates. A recurring theme in both scientific and popular discussion was the emphasis placed upon gender difference and the 'feminine progressive mission'. For various sections of British society the coming of age of British feminism coincided with fears of surplus population in Britain and concerns over race nationalism. The promotion of female emigration and imperial mother- hood built upon the assumption that it was the natural, biological role of British women overseas to use the advantages of, or to counteract the limitations imposed by, the physical environment to the benefit of men, children, the family and the race in the interests of progress. These beliefs had their roots in

evolutionary theory. Within the Darwinian frame, biological differences between the sexes led to intellectual and moral differences (Mosedale, 1978; Richards, 1983; Russett, 1989). The well-developed emotional and aesthetic skills of women (which had evolved at the expense of their intellectual growth) derived from the maternal instinct. These skills could be put to good use in the service of the Empire, notably in the biological and social reproduction of British civilization overseas. South Africa was an appropriate region for this task.

This paper demonstrates how the apparent objectivity of science, including geography and medicine, legitimated official goals through the con- struction of images of South Africa's environments and British gender roles. It considers the physiologi- cal model of human adaptation which focused on the ability of Europeans, both women and men, to acclimatize overseas. Theories of acclimatization argued that, in the main, Europeans were unable to adapt to tropical environments (Ripley, 1899). Whilst temporary sojourns might prove to be harmless, long-term residence would cause both mental and moral degeneration. Women and children, whose

Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N.S. 18: 327-341 (1993) ISSN: 0020-2754 Printed in Great Britain

constitutions were thought to be weaker than those of men, would suffer in particular. By contrast, mid-latitude territories including Australia, Canada and South Africa, were ideal for permanent white settlement. In these regions, women could thrive and

reproduce the imperial race. In the case of South Africa, this paper concentrates on climate's thera-

peutic role in the prospect of improved health. This

territory offered not only opportunities for a greater Britain overseas, it also provided an escape from Britain's unhealthy cities. It is argued here that even in this equable climate, human adaptation to the 'unfamiliar' remained important. An essential part of the acclimatization process was the creation of a humanized landscape of social control. Achieving this

landscape transformation depended on harnessing modern science and technology together with the

supposedly unique skills of women.

CONTRADICTORY IMAGES OF OTHER ENVIRONMENTS

In the history of ideas about development and pro- gress, links between the physical environment and human health are well established. As recent attempts to reinterpret imperialism and post-imperialism demonstrate, they have been used in different ways at various times to justify European intervention in other cultures and territories (MacKenzie, 1990). Historiographical accounts of nineteenth century Africa illustrate this point. Images of particular social, biological and environmental phenomena, the

racially-susceptible African in a hostile, disease- ridden environment - the very antithesis of our vision of ourselves - promoted a moral obligation to intervene and a political mandate to control in the name of development. Authority derived from the

apparently superior power of European technology and medicine underpinned concepts of enlighten- ment and progress (Arnold, 1988; Macleod and Lewis, 1988; Vaughan, 1991). Studies of epidemics and famines within colonial societies reflect a similar

emphasis upon difference between colonizer and colonized. They demonstrate how these crises of social reproduction were used by the colonial state and private capital to reorganize and discipline labour and to justify racial segregation and exclusion. Similar

negative stereotyping exists today. Africa is once

again a dark continent 'full of sick and starving people' (Prins, 1989, p. 159). Media images of

drought, warfare and famine support and promote the aid business and justify renewed western humanitarian intervention.

But deep-rooted in western thought are complex and contradictory images of Africa which challenge these uniformly negative conceptions of its environ- ments and peoples. Numerous studies demonstrate how colourful, diverse and ambiguous geographical images of the non-European realm have been used

by Europeans over time to represent and interpret 'exotic', 'remote' regions. As Henri Baudet (1965) has

pointed out, these often imaginative excesses have a

deeper significance for European civilization. They represented the careful invention of an external world for a specific purpose. During various periods in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, official attempts to promote European overseas settlement built upon a very different language and imagery from that of a universally dark continent (Williams, 1990). Overseas settlement was strongly influenced by the science of human survival and, in this, local physical conditions mattered. Following a long tradition of

European environmental thought and overseas ex-

perience, the tropical regions were widely regarded as unacceptable for sustained white occupation. Discussion at the geographical societies tended to

support this view. A note in The Scottish Geographical Magazine for 1885 drew attention to the unhealthy climate for colonization in regions beyond Britain's

imperial control, including the German and Portuguese territories of tropical Africa (Geographical notes, 1885a). A year later, similar comments were made

by Dr Robert W. Felkin, lecturer in diseases of the

tropics and climatology at the School of Medicine, Edinburgh and member of Council of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. At the British Association meeting in Birmingham, he noted that the coastal regions of tropical Africa were particularly hostile except when combined with 'frequent changes to some sanatorium on the higher land of the interior, or a voyage home or to the Cape' (Felkin, 1886,

p. 654). He noted that even within the equatorial belt suitable sites for a sanatorium existed. These equiv- alents to the hill stations in India could be identified

by a careful examination of the local 'medical topo- graphy'. Settlements should, for example, avoid marshes because of their association with malaria. Initial cultivation of the soil should not be carried out

by Europeans since 'turning up the virgin soil and

planting the first crops invariably encourage disease'. Plantations of Eucalyptus did appear to diminish malaria and improve 'the healthiness of a district'

328 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

(Felkin, 1886, p. 655). So, tropical residence was

possible with the correct medical topography. During the second half of the nineteenth century,

a range of opinions about acclimatization were

expressed (Ripley, 1899). The establishment of the

germ theory of disease and improvements in sanitary science led many scientists to the conviction that

germs rather than sun, heat and moisture were the

primary constraints upon tropical colonization. In his address to the Royal Geographical Society in 1898, Dr Louis Westenra Sambon, a physician from Naples and lecturer at the London School of Tropical Medicine, dismissed beliefs in the impossibility of

tropical acclimatization as mere 'superstitions'. Equally, Dr Felkin, in his British Association address in 1886, noted that many tropical diseases could be avoided by prophylactic treatment, either medical or sanitary. Notwithstanding this scientific 'progress', the history of western attitudes to other climates cannot be characterized as a simple progression from

superstition to reason. Many myths persisted in intel- lectual and political circles and in popular debate over the physiological, mental/psychological and moral

consequences of residence in an unfamiliar climate (Curtin, 1989; Kennedy, 1990). As David Livingstone (1987; 1991; forthcoming) has demonstrated, moral evaluations of the world's climatic zones and of Africa's place within these, entered the scientific discourse on acclimatization.

A growing body of literature, including medical treatises and technical guides to travellers on the care of their health, reflected this concern with acclimatiza- tion. In these, instructions to women and children were particularly important since their health was regarded as more fragile than that of men. Dr Andrew Davidson, author of Geographical Pathology, produced a substantial volume in 1893 on Hygiene and diseases of warm climates. Using medical statistics on India, he pointed to the higher mortality of European women and children than that of European men. Biological differences were used to substantiate the belief that women were physiologically the weaker sex and could be more easily upset by tropical heat. In the opinion of Sir William Moore, a former Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay and Honorary Physician to the Queen, women were more prone to abdominal diseases (1890, p. 55). Equally in the case of children it was claimed that they would deteriorate both physically and morally if they remained in the tropics beyond five years. According to Moore, 'they grow up weak and weedy, deficient in energy and lacking in strength' (1890, p. 19) with a

'marked disposition to relaxation' and 'idleness' (1890, p. 4). He recommended

males should not proceed to the tropics before the growth of the body is matured ... it is doubly important that females should not so proceed until not only the growth of the body is matured, but also not until the function of menstruation is regularly and healthily performed. (1890, p. 57)

Thus beliefs about acclimatization fed into the

ideology of degeneration which, although used pri- marily in a racial sense, also applied to the other at home, those who appeared to lack the stamina of the

archetypal British male. These debates over the physical and moral effects

of different climates on women and children not only influenced, but were influenced by, the beliefs and behaviour of European women who travelled over- seas. The writer and traveller, Mary Hall, reporting her trek from the Cape to Cairo in 1907, stated

I was not at all sure I should have nerve enough to carry me through; and nerve is not the only thing required; health is all-important, especially when travelling alone. The health which may be excellent in Europe is not always of the kind to withstand the ravages of a tropical climate, the insidious bite of the mosquito, or the pestilence that walketh in darkness. (1907, p. 20)

Mary Curzon, wife of the Viceroy of India, wrote in 1903, 'India ... slowly but surely murders women'

(Trollope, 1983, p. 103). They languished and pined in the enervating heat. By contrast, the equable climates of Australia, New Zealand and selected parts of Africa were ideal for European women.

This environmental debate provided a commen- tary upon the political choices available overseas and the limits to imperial control. In particular it became interrelated with imperial drives to promote over- seas settlement. While there were gaps between the rhetoric and realities of effective emigration, debates surrounding colonization were highly influential in structuring a range of apparently contradictory images both of conditions at home and of Britain's imperial territories. Central to these debates were technology, demography and gender. At the inaugural meeting of the London branch of the Scottish Geographical Society in 1892, Professor James Bryce, historian, politician and subsequently British Ambassador to the United States, noted that historically 'the most important physical factor in determining lines of [population] movement has

329

... been climate' (Bryce, 1892, p. 411). During the nineteenth century in particular, emigration had been assisted by and become necessary because of technology:

an immense outflow (of people) from Europe to America, Australia and South Africa had been made possible by the progress in physical science, firstly in introducing the use of steam for ocean voyages, and secondly in so accelerating the growth of population in Europe that the impulse towards less crowded lands became stronger than ever before. (1892, p. 416)

Since 'ocean transit' had, in Bryce's words, become 'so swift, safe and cheap' (1892, p. 416), new territories were now available which offered a viable escape from the 'overpopulated countries of Europe' (Felkin, 1886, p. 648). They also provided an attractive alternative to the 'pestilential darkness' which could be found not only in the tropics of Africa but also, paradoxically, at home in Britain's unhealthy cities.

These demographic concerns underpinned female

emigration in particular. The robust statement by Punch in 1850 that 'the daughters of England are too numerous' helped promote female emigration as a sound and practical solution for the metropole (Trollope, 1983, p. 59). But emigration was also useful to those colonies deemed environmentally appropri- ate for women. The female 'surplus' was assumed to

comprise single women and, since the arena of womanhood was the home, it was argued that care- fully directed emigration would meet their own personal needs for a husband and family while, in addition, serving the imperial cause of colonial

expansion. Since the work in the 1830s of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, colonial reformer and promoter of middle class emigration, 'respectable' and 'cultivated' women had been regarded as essential to the survival of British cultural values overseas. At the Social Science Congress in 1861, a similar theme was

adopted by the founder of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, Maria Rye. She warmly sup- ported female emigration, not only as an alternative source of scarce employment for women but also because of the 'elevation of morals' which would 'inevitably' result from 'the mere presence in the colony of a number of high class women'. From mid- century, the growth of Victorian and Edwardian female emigration societies reflected similar views.

This selective reversal of the popular image of Britain's imperial domain was of profound symbolic importance. The discovery of environmental qualities

in certain overseas territories apparently lacking in Britain, in particular, their suitability for the restoration and expansion of the race, challenged any notion of a universally hostile geographic other. In doing so, a range of interests were satisfied. By the end of the century, liberal-minded politicians had a convenient strategy for dealing with social unrest at home arising from urban squalor and unemployment. For social imperialists concerned with the British self- image of an imperial race, new prospects were offered of a greater Britain overseas. As part of this strategy, single women could be liberated from their position as the other at home while a moral British landscape was assured overseas. In effect, environmental quality sanctioned a carefully targeted and directed female emigration.

WHITE SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

In the case of South Africa, three strands of imperial ideology were particularly important. First, the region offered a convenient location for Britain's

'surplus' population, men, women and children. Secondly and more particularly, it could assist in the regeneration of the race; it could rehabilitate Britain's sick. The aftermath of the South African War (1899- 1902) confirmed this. Thirdly, unlike the colonies of

exploitation or administration, it was an ideal location for a greater Britain overseas; as a new frontier for British civilization and settlement, it could satisfy the aims of race nationalism. A pen drawing of South Africa produced by John Guille Millais in 1894 captures the region's intriguing and liberating quality (Fig. 1). One of a series of illustrations from a book, A Breath from the Veldt, it depicts a perfect climate of sunshine and warmth. The exciting, challenging and

threatening physical landscape of wild beasts permits apparently masculine pursuits like exploration and

hunting to be indulged. The faithful African servant

provides the necessary support. The 'beautiful

savage maiden' imprisoned by circling crocodiles, symbolizes fertility, health and wealth, a region rich in resources.

Whilst this drawing presents mere fanciful carica- tures, it also offers a commentary on the links between environment, race and gender which were central concerns of imperial science. Lying within the

sub-tropical zone, South Africa was environmentally apart from the Dark Continent. Viscount Milner, in his inaugural address to the Scottish Geographical Society on 13 November 1907, noted

330 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

FIGURE 1. South Africa - The Ideal (J. G. Millais, 1895)

The dominant physical fact about South and South- Central Africa is the great irregular tableland which constitutes so large a portion of it, and which carries the climate of the temperate zone into the heart of the tropics.

He went on

In South Africa men of European race thrive and multiply exceedingly in latitudes which are generally fatal or debilitating to the white man. Their splendid physique is due to the bracing air of these large expanses of lofty open country. (1907, p. 621)

Except in the sub-tropical lower ground flanking the

plateau where 'the Bantu tribes flourish', there were no climatic constraints upon permanent, fecund and racially pure white colonization. The medical com- munity had already given its own scientific authority to this view. The Journal of Tropical Medicine for 1898 confirmed that, despite their residence in South Africa for two and a half centuries in a climate within 35 degrees of the Equator, the Boers displayed no

evidence of degeneration in physique, diplomacy and commerce (1898, p. 136). Indeed the region was entirely suited to white labour. This was in marked contrast to the tropics where it was argued that, under the tutelage of superior white races, only the native

populations could be 'producers by physical labour of material wealth' (Bryce, 1892, p. 14).

A decade earlier, Dr Felkin's cartography had

given medical support to Britain's imperial aims; the

region south of the Tropic of Capricor was shown to be relatively free of the most debilitating diseases (Felkin, 1889). Further evidence of cartography as

imperial propaganda could be found in the work of Silva White, author, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and active member of the Royal Scottish

Geographical Society. In an attempt to classify regions of Africa on the basis of their suitability for

European settlement, he came to similar conclusions. In his paper delivered to the Royal Society of

Edinburgh on 16 March 1891 and published in The Scottish Geographical Magazine, White defined six major criteria influencing colonization. These were environmental phenomena such as temperature,

331

absence of malaria, natural communications as they affected accessibility to the world economy and natural resources. Also important were exterior trade and commerce, indigenous (religion, native culture, relations with Europe) and foreign (character and extent of European domination or settlement, capacity for development of European institutions) political conditions. Collectively, he argued, these criteria expressed 'the relative, progressive value of a given region' (1891, p. 195). He noted, 'the outstand- ing value attached to South Africa' (Fig. 2) due to a combination of favourable environmental, political and economic conditions, namely, 'its relatively healthy climate, its organized political institutions, its strong base on the coast, and its rich natural resources' (1891, p. 194).

Ellen Churchill Semple viewed the region some- what differently. South Africa, like Canada and New England, had represented the frontier of European overseas settlement in the seventeenth century. Despite the location of South Africa on the temperate side of the Tropic of Capricorn raising hopes of 'a rich economic, social and cultural development', Semple argued (1911, p. 623)

these are dashed by an examination of the isotherms. Climate monotony, operating alone would have con- demned South Africa to poverty of development, and will unquestionably always avail to impoverish its national life.

Ethnic diversity offered some compensation, notably the English, Dutch, French Huguenots and 'a large Jewish contingent in the urban centers of the Rand'. Nevertheless, she argued,

climatic control is here peculiarly despotic. We see how it has converted the urban merchants of Holland and the skillful Huguenot artisan of France into the crude pastoral Boer of the Transvaal.

Semple was aware of Turner's frontier thesis and the fears expressed at the end of the nineteenth century that the closure of the American frontier would adversely affect society. Her analysis of South Africa

expressed these concerns in climatic terms. This view notwithstanding, for the majority of the

British geographical community at least, South Africa was a region where Europeans could 'stand the climate well - in fact, find it extremely healthy' (Geographical notes, 1885b, p. 383). Favourable environmental conditions would underpin future de- velopment; with British capital, skills and technology,

the material and cultural environment could be trans- formed. Familiar urban and rural landscapes would be recreated overseas as tangible expressions of imported progress (Harris, 1977; Hartz, 1964).

INVALIDS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: EMIGRATION AS A REGENERATIVE PROCESS

Among the attractions of South Africa which fuelled this drive to 'develop' the region were its therapeutic, regenerative qualities. During the second half of the nineteenth century 'natural cures', including sea voyages and spas, health resorts and open-air sanatoria, became fashionable prescriptions within

Europe for a range of illnesses including gout, bronchitis, dyspepsia 'nervous afflictions' and phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption). Towards the end of the century, favoured locations with similar environments included South Africa, California and the Mediterranean. South Africa had already been attractive to Europeans suffering the ravages of a tropical climate. Until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it had been a favourite sanatorium for officers and members of the Indian Civil Service (Nixon, 1880). Its suitability for invalids from Europe was confirmed by travellers and medical science. The sickly youth, Cecil Rhodes, was sent in 1870 by his father from their Bishop's Stortford home to the more salubrious climate of Natal (Huttenback, 1966, p. 99). Here was a region which offered unlimited space, high altitudes, fresh dry air, pure water, warmth and sunshine. Even the voyage itself was regarded as 'one of the pleasantest and most healthful in the world' (Little, 1903, p. 153), particularly appropriate for those suffering afflictions of the nervous system, including cases of nervous break-down, 'so common a feature of our over-strained civilization' (Little, 1903, p. 159). But, in addition to the therapy offered by the voyage, South Africa was deemed to be ideal for what at that time was the modern treatment of tuberculosis.

Susan Sontag (1978) in her book, Illness as metaphor, has shown how, in the nineteenth century public mind, tuberculosis carried the awe, symbolism and threat which became associated with cancer in the mid-twentieth century and which, over the last decade, has become linked with AIDS. Among medi- cal experts on chest diseases, there was also much debate over the 'exact relations' between phthisis and climate. These included 'climate as a direct cause of the disease; as affording immunity from the disease

332 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

FIGURE 2. Comparative value of African Lands (1891)

and as ameliorating and curing it' (Woolcock, 1988, p. 183). Although phthisis death rates had been

declining in England since the 1820s, it remained a major killer, especially among young men and

women. Throughout the century, ill health and creativity were frequently linked. To be sickly was indeed a fashionable and modem component of artistic sensibility (Bade, 1985). John Keats and Percy

333

Shelley symbolize the romantic and consumptive youths fleeing Britain's melancholy skies and cold, damp gloom for the southern sun-'the shrine of health, joy and illusion' (Dobos, 1952). Jane Austen, Robert Browning and Fryderyk Chopin, all suffered to some degree from TB. After the discovery of the bacterium (tubercle bacillus) by Robert Koch in 1882, the causes of the disease and its contagious nature became better understood. However, in the absence of a specific cure, living in a healthy climate con- tinued to be an important remedy (Woolcock, 1988). Medical science confirmed that emigration to South Africa was an effective way of restoring the race overseas. Indeed, well into the inter-war years some TB specialists continued to advocate emigration to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as an appropriate post-sanatorium treatment (Bryder, 1988).

These medical judgements were, however, neither neutral nor objective. They were intertwined with imperial political and economic interests. South Africa offered more than the possibility of improved health. Addressing the Royal Colonial Institute in 1880, Dr Edmund Symes-Thompson, consulting physician and writer on pulmonary phthisis, confirmed this point. He stressed

the desirability of diverting to our beautiful Colonies a portion ... of that wealth which health and pleasure seekers shower upon the [European] Continent and a number of foreign countries ... Depend upon it, South Africa, like all British Colonies, is all the better for having as much money brought into it as possible. Invalids bring money with them, and for that reason, if for no other, I think it would be a very good thing if doctors discover that our own British Colonies are good health resorts. (1880, p. 33).

Some twenty years later, in a report on South Africa, Dr Ernest Little, physician and former Porter Scholar of the Cape University, emphasized

It should be an additional pleasure to every enlightened Imperialist to think that within the borders of our own empire, in lands peopled by those who speak our own kindly mother-tongue, we may find physical conditions in every way superior to those of foreign health-resorts which have hitherto waxed fat and become insolent in their fancied monopoly. (Little, 1903, p. 157)

He noted that the South African resorts afforded 'more prolonged sunshine and purer air and are more exempt from the infectivity of overcrowding than

is the case with the fashionable recruiting places of Europe' including Switzerland and the Mediterranean (Little, 1903, p. 166). These attempts to promote South Africa as 'healthy', represent not only an essen- tial part of imperial history but of a broader cultural history: the urban middle class search for the ideal environment. Within North America, from the mid- nineteenth century, pursuit of 'the good life' was given renewed impetus when therapeutic travel to the west coast received wide publicity (Vance, 1972).

But while health-seekers might revive the fortunes of California after the gold rush, the export of invalids to South Africa had economic advantages for both the 'mother-hive of England' and this new 'member of Greater Britain' (Nixon, 1880, p. 310). Not only did they export funds but, in the case of non-wealthy consumptives, Little (1903, p. 160) pointed out

South Africa is a new and progressive country, in which there are good prospects that the change of environment will lead, not only to restored health, but to the means of earning a livelihood as well.

Dr Little's article 'Health resorts of South Africa'

appeared in an edited volume (Creswicke, 1903) published on the occasion of the visit of Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary to South Africa following Britain's narrow victory in the South African War (1899-1902). This protracted conflict starkly demonstrated the ill preparedness, lack of training and stamina of British troops for pro- longed warfare. It shattered the complacency of both the army and the nation (Hichberger, 1988) and ushered in an era in which 'the development of the New Dominions' assumed particular importance (Creswicke, 1903, Preface). Civilian emigration was central to this 'development'. Through its association with the eugenics movement and the survival of the British race overseas, emigration of men, women and children to South Africa was 'a question of national

importance' (Cecil, 1902, p. 683). This was a country in which European settlement

could be demographically balanced; the immediate family unit could remain intact. 'Owing to the height above sea-level of the great central plateau', South Africa was one of the few 'healthy and salubrious countries' in sub-tropical latitudes 'in which the children of Europeans can thrive and grow up' (Markham, 1900, p. 240). Writing in 1901, Francis Stevenson, Member of Parliament and former Parliamentary Charity Commissioner, defended the emigration of destitute, neglected and orphaned

334 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

children to specially founded homes or settlements in South Africa. For the children, the advantages were 'obvious'; such settlements offered an 'ampler life' free from the 'town and country institutes of the United

Kingdom with their cramped and crowded conditions of employment for the poor' (1901, p. 1024). Proper education and training 'would promise them a suc- cessful livelihood and ensure a wider, healthier life all round'. For South Africa, in 'urgent need of settlers', such a scheme would ensure 'the adequate natural

representation of both sexes, a matter of grave difficulty in many schemes of adult emigration'. Moreover, the girls would grow up

to maidenhood carefully trained to colonial usefulness, imbued with English ideas, and destined as wives and mothers to have a far-reaching influence of the best kind for the interest of our race. (Stevenson, 1901, p. 1024)

Thus while climate's regenerative role was asserted, recuperation in the region formed part of a broader

strategy of overseas settlement which was itself bound up with Britain's domestic economic problems, imperial rivalries and the funding of colonial develop- ment (Bean and Melville, 1990). Also implicated was a rapidly forming regional medical geography.

Within the country, race regeneration was built on a physiological model and a utilitarian view of the environment. Acclimatization involved exposure to

particular physical conditions and avoidance of others. While in broad terms the region's suitability for recuperation was relatively uncontested, links between environment and health went beyond mere macro-climatic considerations. The countryside, and the highlands in particular, with few people and clear air were deemed to be healthier than the towns or the coast. One former invalid noted that, as a general rule,

no place upon the sea in South Africa is adapted for lung invalids. The sea air is loaded with humid particles, which render the atmosphere moist, and cause cold breezes. These cold, moist winds, though pleasant, are not beneficial. (Nixon, 1880, p. 295)

By contrast, it was argued that in the higher altitudes of the interior, the rarefied air increased the action of the heart, so patients would breathe more quickly and deeply and so stimulate the muscles of the lungs. The combination of hot dry summers and cold dry winters compared favourably with countries like Australia, thought also to have therapeutic qualities. The dryness of the porous sub-soil which prevented

putrefaction was also thought to be advantageous. This regional medical geography enhanced the im-

portance of the interior and justified the promotion of health resorts, particularly those in Cape Colony on the series of terraces inland from the coast. These terraces included the Southern Karoo (1000-1500 feet), the Great or Central Karoo (2-3000 feet) and the Northern Karoo stretching to the Orange River (at 4000 feet and above). Within these various

physical zones medical cartography was used to plot the most desirable locations. In a pamphlet of 1886 on South Africa as a Health Resort, Dr Arthur Fuller, an Edinburgh physician and member of the Royal College of Surgeons, identified a number of key centres. These were underlined on his map and in- cluded Ceres, Beaufort West, Graaff-Reinet, Cradock, Grahamstown, Queenstown, Aliwal North and Bloemfontein (Fig. 3).

This medical map suggested that the physiological model of race regeneration was anti-metropolitan rather than crudely anti-urban. But the rural environ- ment was not interpreted as universally primitive and

empty; vacant areas were areas of non-development rather than backward. The Times Special Correspon- dent, Flora Shaw, in a visit to South Africa in 1892, reflected this view in her description of the high plateau above Cape Town. She noted that although the monotony of the Karoo 'grey-green scrub' was broken only 'by a clump of mimosa bushes ... or by the sheer barrenness of patches of red shingle', there was nevertheless an exhilaration in the 'fresh air'. She continued

While the soil in this part of the great plateau has not yet been put to any practical use, the air has been found to possess such remarkable curative power for diseases of the chest that people flock to it in increasing numbers year by year. (The Times, 1893, p. 3)

Throughout the Karoo, 'the stopping places are all health stations' where patients come to undergo 'the simple process of an air cure' (1893, p. 3). Matjiesfontein, which was established in the 1880s, acquired widespread popularity and was used as a base hospital in the South African War. However, not all the 'stopping places' shared its charm. Violet Markham, whose first tour of South Africa in 1899 helped launch her career as public servant in Britain, confirmed this view. Commenting on 'Charles Somerset's predilection for covering the map of Africa with the names of his family', she mocked the contrast between 'stately Badmington' and the mere

335

MORAG BELL

FIGURE 3. Cape Colony with the major health resorts underlined (A. Fuller, 1886)

'village' of Beaufort West which masqueraded as a health resort (Markham, 1900, p. 341). But while the Karoo lacked aesthetic charm, its utilitarian value was

unquestioned. Participating in agricultural pursuits was also

thought to be of benefit to the invalid. By accompa- nying the farmer to the cattle kraal or on his daily rides, the necessary open-air therapy was ensured (Nixon, 1880, p. 300). This respect for the wholesome rural lifestyle contrasted sharply with what was to become the more typical pursuit of the healthy British

emigrant. In the opinion of Flora Shaw

the destination of the Englishman in his typical character is one of the mining centres. He is going to Kimberley or Johannesburg... He wants profit but he wants it quickly. (The Times, 1893, p. 5)

For the invalid, however, the advantages of the rural environment were not intended as a crude return to nature. The frontier spirit of the nineteenth century explorers was not invoked. Nor was the use of time and space characteristic of the Dutch farmers 'content

with trekking by ox wagon'. There was indeed no

appeal to the virtues of 'primitive' pastoralism charac- teristic of the American romantic movement earlier in the century (Vance, 1972). Rather, British enterprise must first be employed to bring a civilized order to the landscape. Rural locations and health resorts should be easily accessible utilizing the benefits of modern technology, including the railway. One is reminded here of the Garden City concept, debated in Britain at this time, in which the railway allowed the flight to the suburbs (Buder, 1990). It was these modern lines of communication which, in South Africa, must first extend the frontier of civilization beyond the major towns. Indeed, Dr Fuller's pamph- let of 1886 was intended to correct the backward image of South Africa which, he argued, was dis- played by many writers of high medical authority, notably that 'bullock wagon was still the speediest means of travelling' (Preface). The title of his pam- phlet makes these intentions clear (Fig. 4). Dr Fuller

sought to ensure that South Africa's image in Britain was of a progressive, technologically sophisticated country to which the invalid could quickly adapt.

336

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA AS A

HEALTH RESORT,

WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EFFECTS OF

THE CLIMATE ON

Consumptive Invalids, AND FULL PARTICULARS OF THE VARIOUS LOCALITIES

MOST SUITABLE FOR THEIR TREATMENT,

AND ALSO OF

THE BEST MEANS OF REACHING

THE PLACES INDICATED

BY

ARTHUR FULLER, M.B.C.M. EDIN., M.R.C.S. LoNDoN (of Boshof, Orange Free State).

LONDON:

W. B. WHITTINGHAM & CO.,

91, GRACECHURCH STREET.

ISS6.

All rights resered.

FIGURE 4. Arthur Fuller, 1886. Title page

The health stations to which he referred were con- veniently located on, or close to, the railway network of Cape Colony (Fig. 3).

But a favourable climate and outdoor pursuits in accessible locations were not enough. Sound physical health could be secured only when combined with mental adaptability and correct moral behaviour. For the invalid contemplating emigration, it was essential that s/he should be 'able to endure the exile from home, the deprivation, to a greater or less extent, of home comforts, and the absence of the familiar faces which have cheered the depression and melancholy engendered by illness' (Nixon, 1880, p. 304). Avoid- ing stuffy billiard rooms, smoking and alcohol were also essential (Nixon, 1880, p. 301). This mental and moral component of acclimatization required a con- genial social environment including adequate food and accommodation (Little, 1903, p. 166). These were the responsibility of women. It was their role to

humanize the landscape. 'Intelligent ladies' were

required in sanatoria to ensure 'for the invalid the comforts of home' and the required 'tender nursing' (Ross, 1876, p. 33). But overall the institutionalization of ill health was to be avoided. 'It is unadvisable' noted the physician Dr J. Ross (1876, p. 67), 'for a number of invalids, low in spirits, brooding over their

unhappy lots, to be domiciled together'. Rather, a

congenial and familiar landscape should be created: ideally, 'a comfortable home in a private family' based

upon feminine domestic qualities; those essential components of women's 'progressive' overseas mission (Editor of Rhodesia, 1902). Dr Ross (1876)

reported that, on the basis of his experience, the evils of smoking and drinking were best avoided when a 'cheerful' and 'airy' home environment, including good food and sound domestic hygiene, was pro- vided in the health resorts. His findings echoed earlier recommendations made by Edwin Chadwick on the reform of intemperance among the working people of Britain (Richardson, 1887).

Thus at a time when the menacing spectre of female emancipation, easier divorce and birth control were gathering pace in Britain, race re-

generation built upon profoundly conservative notions of womanhood. Commenting on women's domestic duty, Dr Ross recalled 'the secret of the power of the public-house in old England'

few workmen's wives know how to cook or to make home comfortably attractive and cheerful! Is not here a wide and little-occupied field for doing good -a way open to improve the social condition of the people? (1876, p. 25)

Such domestic skills were urgently needed in South Africa. Significantly, they could not be supplied by Boer women with their 'ignorance of the laws of hygiene which produces habits of slovenliness both injurious to health and distasteful to British ideas' (Cecil, 1902, p. 683). Ross strongly supported the opening of 'schools for training young girls in cookery and household management'. His proposals coincided with the introduction of similar training centres in Britain as part of a broader programme of female preparation for colonial service and imperial motherhood (Davin, 1978). In 1890, the British Women's Emigration Association established a Colonial Training Home at Leaton in Shropshire where prospective emigrants were instructed in housewifery, cooking, baking and washing. Also emphasized were activities associated with the

337

rural landscape beyond the domestic environment, notably milking, dairy work, poultry-care and bee- keeping (Hammerton, 1979). Emigrants to South Africa were encouraged to acquire such skills (Argyll, 1903; Hutchinson, 1902). Thus women's partici- pation in the revival of the race overseas formed part of a broader female emigration programme. Both were based upon a conception of femininity which acquired the authority of science through their appeal to the entirely natural, nurturing and caring role of women within the environment of the home.

Good health depended, finally, upon a landscape of social control. While the benefits of technological innovation were welcomed, the geographic centres of these innovations, namely the major towns, were deemed to be inappropriate for the invalid. Although they represented economic symbols of material pro- gress, the physical conditions were often inimical to

good health. To quote a former invalid, 'Durban has not only the disadvantage of being a seaport, but is too hot in the summer, and it is liable to the "dengue", a fever of a typhoid type' (Nixon, 1880, p. 295). Margery Perham observed the results some fifty years later. In her 1929 tour of South Africa she noted 'scores of rather weedy men, pale, with weak blue eyes and dark hair; it almost seemed as though a type had been evolved, at least in the city' (1974, p. 31). Both Cape Town and Port Elizabeth were unhealthy because of their exposure to the south east winds and occasional mists. Commenting on De Aar in the inter- ior, a visitor to the country noted 'when I passed it once' the atmosphere 'was not air but dust - gritty, nasty dust, which is as sure to give pneumonia as the rock-drilled dust of the mines' (Balfour Browne, 1905, p. 28). These physical disadvantages were made worse by the presence of the African population. In the case of Kimberley, despite its interior location away from the sea winds, 'the benefits of it are en- tirely neutralised by the dust, the bustle, the natives and the unsanitary condition of the place, and the thousand and one circumstances incident to a great mining centre' (Nixon, 1880, p. 290). Malay Location, the African slum in Johannesburg with its flimsy shacks and inadequate services, had an 'inhospitable character' (Parnell, 1991, p. 273). In effect, the distinc- tive pathology of urban centres derived, at least in

part, from their association with overcrowded and insanitary African areas.

Research into epidemics has shown how, with the advent of industrialization and urbanization from the 1870s, together with the development of public health consciousness in the metropole, public auth-

orities in South Africa became obsessed with the imagery of infectious disease as a societal metaphor (Lemon, 1991; Marks and Andersson, 1988; Swanson, 1977; van Onselen, 1982a). This metaphor interacted with racial attitudes to promote urban segregation. Advice to the emigrant invalid reflected and reinforced this view. Since all threats to the emigrant's health and, by implication, to the European social order, should be minimized, it was entirely natural that encounters with the other should be strictly controlled. Seclusion in aesthetically attractive residential suburbs, based on the designs at home, was essential to escape from a physical and social environment which threatened disease. But the

particular urban form which developed in South Africa involved not only separation of rich and poor; also important was segregation by race. In Cape Town, Dr Ross (1876, p. 13) recommended residence in the Gardens, a suburb on the lower slopes of Table Mountain. 'A charming place', he reported, where 'vines grow in front and around the houses, passion- flowers and other climbers add beauty to the immedi- ate scene, while the dark green foliage of the groves in the background gives the whole an air of grandeur'. In the new mining centres by the 1890s, substantial

buildings were replacing the initial temporary structures. Park Town, surveyed in Johannesburg in 1891, was the first of a series of wealthy and exclusive residential districts planned on the contemporary European garden-suburb model (Christopher, 1976). Extensions to the original grid plan also included Indian locations and Poor White areas laid out in small plots. The aesthetic attractions of these new suburbs were noted by many visitors to the country. Flora Shaw (The Times, 1893, p. 6) commented that at Kimberley in mid-winter 'the hardier sorts of roses, geraniums, violets and autumn foliage linger still in the villa gardens which are springing up in the English fashion round the town'.

It is ironic that while Europeans sought to escape from disease by emigrating to South Africa, for the African population the incidence of TB was increased by the urban environment into which they were drawn (Packard, 1989). During a visit to Somerset

Hospital in Cape Town, Dr Ross (1876, p. 14) learned that 'phthisis is prevalent among the natives ... and this prevalence is attributed to their insanitary habitation, the deprivation of their customary food - milk, and to intemperance'. Unlike many medical con-

temporaries in South Africa, he thought it was an

improbable explanation, lacking 'sufficient scientific data'. Within the British home, the practice of

338 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

employing 'native' male domestic servants made it more difficult to maintain a geographic and social distance between ruler and ruled. Rather than aban- don the practice, one doctor peremptorily defended it, stating that it was often 'necessary to entrust

young children to their care' (Little, 1903, p. 165). But he went on, 'since venereal diseases are common

among the coloured population, they must be selected with the utmost circumspection' (Little, 1903, p. 165). As regards 'honesty', the 'native' servant appeared to hold 'peculiar views' (Ross, 1876, p. 37). 'Money and jewellery may be left lying about with impunity'; he can be 'fully trusted' with such items. But if he 'finds spirits or tobacco within reach, he cannot resist the temptation' (Ross, 1876, p. 37). Accusations were frequently made by white women, mostly without justification, of sexual assault by their black male servants (van Onselen, 1982b). The em-

ployment of Africans in the home could nevertheless be defended since they did not constitute a sizeable community. Careful initial screening would minimize the health risks to white families while, through regular monitoring, their 'moral weaknesses' could be controlled. From 1906 white fears of physical and moral contagion in the form of disease and intemper- ance were assuaged in Johannesburg by the pro- motion of African female domestic employment. Although primarily a response to the demands for male mine labour, it was also rationalized by the belief that women were, in any case, 'naturally' more suited to domestic service than men (van Onselen, 1982b, p. 16).

CONCLUSION

Liberty indeed is so far a law of nature to us, individually and nationally, that, once the stage of dependence is passed, there can be no moral or political health without it. (The Cape Times, 1 July 1882, quoted in Shaw, 1975)

In the concluding decades of the nineteenth century, South Africa offered a coherent vision of a healthy society. The natural liberty which, according to The Cape Times, characterized its political environment, complemented an equally liberating physical en- vironment; one which provided a simple, natural remedy for Britain's most frightening maladies. Here could be found the best form of curative medicine. But race regeneration overseas also required physio- logical, moral and mental adaptation. The regional medical geography on which this acclimatization was

based built upon a set of assumptions about environ- ment, race and gender which, through the use of apparently natural categories, offered scientific objectivity to profoundly ideological questions. It was entirely natural that South Africa's urban en- vironment, with its distinctive racial pathology, should be avoided or at least segregated. Equally, medical topography bestowed a new value on the rural environment. But here was no image of the exotic other, nor indeed of simple 'pastoral cleanli- ness'. A civilized and humanized landscape was essen- tial: one which emphasized similarity with, rather than difference from, Britain; one which built on British scientific and technological enterprise and which depended upon a profoundly conservative notion of womanhood, namely, the female humane mission. It was the role of women to transform the physical environment from a bleak and empty space into a comfortable and familiar cultural landscape. Thus, underpinning the physiological discourse on climate was a distinctive regional medical geography in which moral judgements made about race and gender difference were given the authority of science while satisfying particular imperial goals.

NOTE

I. Mary Hall, 1907, 20.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to three referees for their constructive comments on a draft of this paper. Erica Milwain kindly assisted with the artwork.

REFERENCES

ARGYLL, His Grace the Duke of (1903) 'Emigration' in CRESWICKE, L. (ed.) South Africa and it's future (Jack, London) pp. 1-15

ARNOLD, D. (ed.) (1988) Imperial medicine and indigenous societies (Manchester University Press, Manchester)

BADE, P. (1985) 'Art and degeneration: Visual icons of corruption', in CHAMBERLIN, J. and GILMAN, S. (eds) Degeneration. The dark side of progress (Columbia University Press, New York) pp. 220-40

BALFOUR-BROWNE, J. H. (1905) South Africa. A glance at current conditions and politics (Longmans, Green & Co., London)

BAUDET, H. (1965) Paradise on earth. Some thoughts on European images of non-European man (Greenwood, Westport)

BEAN, P. and MELVILLE, J. (1990) Lost children of the Empire (Unwin Hyman, London)

339

BRYCE, J. (1892) 'The migration of the races of men con- sidered historically', Scott. Geogr. Mag., 8: 401-25

BRYDER, L. (1988) Below the magic mountain. A social history of tuberculosis in twentieth-century Britain (Clarendon, Oxford)

BUDER, S. (1990) Visionaries and planners. The garden city movement and the modern community (Oxford University Press, Oxford)

CECIL, A. (1902) 'The needs of South Africa', The Nineteenth Century 50: 683-92

CHRISTOPHER, A. J. (1976) Southern Africa (W. & J. Mackay Ltd., Chatham)

CRESWICKE, L. (ed.) (1903) South Africa and its future (Jack, London)

CURTIN, P. D. (1964) The image of Africa: British ideas and action, 1780-1850 (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison)

CURTIN, P. D. (1989) Death by migration. Europe's encounter with the tropical world in the nineteenth century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)

DAVIDSON, A. (ed.) (1893) Hygiene and diseases of warm climates (Young J. Pentland, Edinburgh)

DAVIN, A. (1978) 'Imperialism and motherhood', History Workshop Spring: 9-65

DUBOS, R. and J. (1952) The white plague. Tuberculosis, man and society (Victor Gollancz, London)

Editor of Rhodesia (1902) 'Woman's life in South Africa', The

Imperial Colonist 1,8: 70-2 FELKIN, R. W. (1886) 'Can Europeans become acclimatised

in Tropical Africa?' Scott. Geogr. Mag. 2: 647-57 FELKIN, R. W. (1889) On the geographical distribution of some

tropical diseases and their relation to physical phenomena (Young J. Pentland, Edinburgh)

FULLER, A. (1886) South Africa as a health resort, with

especial reference to the effects of climate on consumptive invalids, and full particulars of the various localities most suitable for their treatment and also the means of reaching the

places indicated (Whittingham and Co., London) Geographical notes (1885a) 'German colonisation in

tropical Africa', Scott. Geogr. Mag. 1: 263

Geographical notes (1885b) 'The new British colony in South Africa', Scott. Geogr. Mag. 1: 383

HALL, M. (1907) A woman's trek from the Cape to Cairo (Methuen & Co., London)

HAMMERTON, A. J. (1979) Emigrant gentlewomen. Genteel

proverty and female emigration, 1830-1914 (Croom Helm, London)

HARRIS, R. COLE (1977) 'The simplification of Europe overseas', Ann. Ass. Am. Geogr. 67: 469-83

HARTZ, L. (1964) The founding of new societies. Studies in the

history of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia (Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. New York)

HICHBERGER, J. (1988) Images of the army. The military in British art, 1815-1914 (Manchester University Press, Manchester)

HUTCHINSON, M. H. (1902) 'Female emigration to South Africa', The Nineteenth Century January: 71-87

HUTTENBACK, R. A. (1966) 'Cecil Rhodes: Prototype of an imperialist', in The British Imperial Experience (Harper and Row, London) pp. 98-113

Journal of Tropical Medicine (1898) 'The possibility of

Europeans and their families becoming naturalised in the

tropics', December: 136-7 KENNEDY, D. (1990) 'The perils of the midday sun:

climatic anxieties in the colonial tropics', in MacKENZIE J. (ed.) Imperialism and the natural world (Manchester University Press, Manchester) pp. 118-40

LEMON, A. (ed.) (1991) Homes apart. South Africa's segregated cities (Chapman, London)

LITTLE, E. G. (1903) 'Health resorts of South Africa', in CRESWICKE, L. (ed.) South Africa and its future (Jack, London) pp. 15 7-73

LIVINGSTONE, D. N. (1987) 'Human acclimatisation:

perspectives on a contested field of inquiry in science, medicine and geography', History of Science 25: 359-94

LIVINGSTONE, D. N. (1991) 'The moral discourse of climate: historical considerations on race, place and virtue', Journal of Historical Geography 17: 413-34

LIVINGSTONE, D. N. (forthcoming) 'Climate's moral economy: science, race and place in Post-Darwinian British and American geography', in SMITH, N. and GODLEWSKA, A. (eds) Geography and Empire (Blackwell, Oxford)

MacKENZIE, J. M. (1990) Imperialism and the natural world (Manchester University Press, Manchester)

MacLEOD, R. and LEWIS, M. (eds) (1988) Disease, medicine and Empire: perspectives on western medicine and the

experience of Euroepean expansion (Routledge, London) MARKHAM, V. R. (1900) South Africa: past and present

(Smith, Elder and Co., London) MARKS, S. and ANDERSSON, N. (1988) 'Typhus and

social control: South Africa, 1917-50', in MacLEOD, R. and LEWIS, M. (eds) Disease, Medicine and Empire (Routledge, London) pp. 25 7-83

MILLAIS, J. G. (1895) A breath from the veldt (Henry Sotheran and Co., London)

MILNER, A. (1907) 'Geography and statecraft', Scott.

Geogr. Mag. 23: 617-27 MOORE, W. (1890) The constitutional requirements for

tropical climates and observations on the sequel of disease contracted in India (Churchill, London)

MOSEDALE, S. S. (1978) 'Science corrupted: Victorian

biologists consider the woman question', Journal of the

History of Biology 11: 1-55 NIXON, J. (1880) Among the Boers: or notes of a trip to South

Africa in search of health (Remington & Co., London) PACKARD, R. M. (1989) White plague, black labour, tubercu-

losis and the political economy of health and disease in South Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley)

PARNELL, S. (1991) 'Sanitation, segregation and the Natives (Urban Areas) Act: African exclusion from

340 MORAG BELL

Imperial health, gender and images of South Africa

Johannesburg's Malay Location, 1897-1925', Journal of Historical Geography 17: 271-88

PERHAM, M. (1974) African apprenticeship. An autobiogra- phical journey in Southern Africa, 1929 (Faber & Faber, London)

PRINS, G. (1989) 'But what was the disease? The present state of health and healing in African studies', Past and Present 124: 159-79

RICHARDS, E. (1983) 'Darwin and the descent of women', in OLDROYD, D. and LANGHAM, I. (eds) The wider domain of evolutionary thought (Reidel, Dordrecht) pp. 57-112

RICHARDSON, B. W. (1887) The health of nations. A review of the works of Edwin Chadwick with a biographical dissertation (Longmans, Green and Co., London)

RIPLEY, W. Z. (1899) The races of Europe. A sociological study. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London)

ROSS, J. A. (1876) Comsumption and its treatment by climate with reference especially to the health resorts of the South African colonies (Henry Renshaw, London)

RUSSETT, C. E. (1989) Sexual science: the Victorian con- struction of womanhood (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.)

SAMBON, L. W. (1898) 'Acclimatisation of Europeans in

tropical lands', Geogrl J. 12: 589-606 SEMPLE, E. C. (1911) Influences of geographic environment on

the basis of Ratzel's system of anthro-geography (Henry Holt and Co., New York)

SHAW, G. (1975) Some beginnings. The Cape Times 1876- 1910 (Oxford University Press, Oxford)

SONTAG, S. (1978) Illness as metaphor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York)

STEVENSON, F. (1901) 'Child-settlers for South Africa', The Nineteenth Century 49: 1020-9

SWANSON, M. (1977) 'The sanitation syndrome: bubonic

plague and urban native policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909', Journal of African History 17,3: 387-410

SYMES-THOMPSON, E. (1880) 'South Africa as a health resort', Proc. R. Colon. Inst. 20: 4-51

The Times Special Correspondent (1893) Letters from South Africa (Macmillan, London).

TROLLOPE, J. (1983) Britannia's daughters. Women of the British Empire (Hutchinson, London)

VANCE, J. E. (1972) 'California and the search for the ideal', in HART, J. F. (ed.) Regions of the United States (Harper and Row, New York) pp. 185-210

van ONSELEN, C. (1982a) Studies in the social and economic history of the Witwatersrand. Volume 1 New Babylon, Volume 2 New Ninevah (Longman, London)

van ONSELEN, C. (1982b) 'The witches of suburbia' in Studies in the social and economic history of the Witwatersrand. Volume 2 New Ninevah (Longman, London) pp. 1-73

VAUGHAN, M. (1991) Curing their ills: colonial power and African illness (Polity Press, Cambridge)

WHITE, S. (1891) 'On the comparative value of African lands', Scott. Geogr. Mag. 7:191-5

WILLIAMS, K. (1990) 'A way out of our troubles: the

politics of Empire settlement, 1900-1922', in CONSTANTINE, S. (ed.) Emigrants and Empire (Manchester University Press, Manchester) pp. 22-44

WOOLCOCK, H. R. (1988) 'Our salubrious climate: attri- butes to health in colonial Queensland', in MacLEOD, R. and LEWIS, M. (eds) Disease, medicine and Empire (Routledge, London) pp. 176-93

341