bg Randall M. Packard
Copyright (c) 2016.
I chose this book to read because I wanted a tutorial to the field of global health, and I find that histories are interesting tutorials to subjects. The author, unknown to me, is a Johns Hopkins professor of medical history and is known for writing a work on the history of malaria.
The book meets my already-high expectations. Written well, it chronicles early attempts to control disease in “foreign” habitats. It talks about how the “white man” acted with self-interest in Panama with yellow fever and with malaria. It holds no punches about the shortcomings of global health efforts, and as a good history, it shares how more primitive early efforts evolved into greater attempts down the road.
The author’s most-obvious contribution to this conversation is his insistence to examine the economic and social underpinnings of health. Long-term contributions will work along these lines. Too often, Westerners’ contributions were/are focused on attacking one disease (like smallpox or malaria) and are blind to the needs of greater societal structures of healthcare. Of course, disease interventions are also necessary and can have quite an impact (e.g., with smallpox’s eradication). But eradication efforts must be coupled with long-term contributions to culture and education.
Women’s roles cannot be underestimated. In most of the non-Western world, women can live in an underclass without as much freedom or knowledge. Women who learn, to be frank, do not become prostitutes and can control their environment to prevent the spread of disease.
Overall, I would recommend this book for global-health reading. I plan to soon compare it with a history of public health – interventions into the lives of our own people.