Dr Gustav Nachtigal (1834–1885): A Contribution to the History of Medicine in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Africa

Nachtigal G. Sahara und Sudan, 3 vols, 1879–89. English translation by Fisher AGB, Fisher HJ. Sahara and Sudan, 4 vols, 1971–87. London: Christopher Hurst. All references to Nachtigal's writing are to this translation. Only selected references are given in the text (volume number in Roman numerals, followed by page numbers in Arabic); the authors may be contacted for further information

Fisher AGB Fisher HJ . A Christian among Muslims: Nachtigal in Muslim black Africa, 1869–1875. In: Ganslmayr H , Ed. Gedenkschrift Gustav Nachtigal 1874–1974. Bremen: Ubersee-Museum, 1977: 14–32 (especially 28–30). Fisher HJ. A doctor in nineteenth century Africa. Oxford Medical School Gazette 1985;36(3):13–15. Larner AJ. Dr Nachtigal's Casebook: Medicine and Illness in North Africa 1869–1874. Dissertation for the Diploma in the History of Medicine, Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, 1995, unpublished

Ackerknecht EH . Rudolf Virchow: Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953: 232. See also Nachtigal G (op. cit. ref. 1): iii: xvii & n

See, for example, Knox AA . The New Playground or Wanderings in Algeria. London, 1881. Knox was there from 1879 to 1880 (p. 476). He mentions “the almost interminable books about Algeria” (p. 482); also the “remarkable discovery” by “the French scientific men” that the Algerian climate was “prejudicial, if not fatal to Germans. … A delicate German will pine and die there” (p. 111). Happily, Nachtigal was apparently indelicate. See also Curtin PD. Death by Migration: Europe's Encounter with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 76–7, 87 (Table 4.2b), 140–3, showing significantly higher tuberculosis death rates among European troops in France than in North Africa

Gallagher NE . Medicine and Power in Tunisia 1780–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; passim. Gallagher (p. 124) says that Nachtigal departed for the Sudan “because of the famine and cholera of 1867”; the actual reason for the departure, as we shall see, was more positive; and one biography (Wiese J. Gustav Nachtigal. Berlin, 1914: 29–30) reports Nachtigal returning to Tunis from a short European visit precisely because of new outbreaks of illness in Tunis

For a brief journey summary, see Fisher AGB Fisher HJ . Nachtigal's companions. Paideuma 1987; 33: 231–62

Tibesti remains inaccessible for the Western traveller even today; see The Independent, 29 November 1997

For further biographical details on Nachtigal, see Wiese J (op. cit. ref. 5): passim

Cook GC . Doctor David Livingstone frs (1813–1873): “the fever” and other medical problems of mid-nineteenth century Africa. J Med Biog 1994; 2: 33–43

Iliffe J. The African Poor: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987: 215, reports that “in the 19th century leprosy sufferers were excluded from Kukawa, the capital of Bornu”. Nachtigal does not mention such exclusion, though he lived in Kukawa more than a year, and emphasizes the frequency of leprosy in Bornu, where, he adds, lepers are not “excluded from human society, but … are avoided as much as possible” (iii: 206)

Quoted in Bynum WF . Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994: 23. The belief in a hereditary predisposition to tuberculosis was still widely emphasized even after Koch's discovery of the tubercle bacillus in 1882. See Bynum, p. 131

Greenwood B. Cold or spirits? Ambiguity and syncretism in Moroccan therapeutics. In: Feierman S Janzen JM , Eds. The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992: 286–95

Greenwood B (ibid.): 285–314

Cook GC (op. cit. ref. 9): 38

For modern accounts of uvulectomy, see Maclean U. Magical Medicine: A Nigerian Case Study. London: 1971: 65ff. Einterz EM, Einterz RM, Bates ME. Traditional uvulectomy in northern Cameroon. Lancet 1994; 343:1644

See also Fisher HJ . Hassebu: Islamic healing in black Africa. In: Brett M , Ed. Northern Africa: Islam and Modernization. London: Frank Cass, 1973: 23–47

Butter is specified in Bagirmi (iii: 411–12), and a hot iron in Wadai (iv: 174–5), where this task was entrusted to the chief blacksmith, who, in a startling instance of the healing/harming conundrum, “must be well-read in the Qur'an”, and is “the physician for the whole royal family”, in which capacity he is permitted to enter the royal harem (iv: 179). Mistrusted brothers, and sometimes other relatives too, potential rivals to a newly installed ruler, were regularly blinded, in one eye or both, in several of the regions Nachtigal visited. Prospective victims, of course, often sought safety in flight

For modern accounts, see Greene G. Journey Without Maps. London, 1936 (reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978: 109). Lamarque L. Recherches historiques sur la médecine dans la régence d'Alger. Algiers, 1951: 120–2. Buck AA, Anderson RI, Sasaki TT, Kawata K. Health and Disease in Chad: Epidemiology, Culture and Environment in Five Villages. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970: 55

Kumm HKW . From Hausaland to Egypt. London, 1910: 2

Fisher HJ . A pilgrimage in honour of a forgotten German. Frankfurter Allgemeine, 19 September 1996 (in German)

Büttner T Loth H. Geschichte Afrikas. East Berlin, 1976; vol. i, pp. 284 310; vol. ii, p. 19

LI Conrad makes a similar suggestion regarding Bedouin Arab medicine in the accounts of nineteenth and twentieth-century travellers in Arabia. Arab-Islamic medicine. In: Bynum WF Porter R , Eds. Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine. London: Routledge, 1993: 676–727 (especially 686, 720–1 & n43)