Colonial medicine
When did Dutch colonies lock up leprosy?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Compulsory segregation was the exception, used where Dutch rule was direct and plantation slavery made racialised workers disposable once they could not labour.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Comparative colonial history of Dutch West and East Indies leprosy segregation, 1750–1950
- N
- Empire-wide comparative history; 1930 Suriname statistic that ~80% diagnosed were Afro-Surinamese is contextual
- Population
- Leprosy policy and segregation under Dutch colonial rule in West and East Indies
- Outcome
- Compulsory segregation as exception tied to plantation labour and racialised disposability
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
Visible isolation was not universal: money, distance, and communication blocked it. Segregation tracked plantation-intensive economies and racial ‘Others’ in slavery or involuntary servitude. The colonial gaze is how planters, officials, and doctors legitimised locking up those no longer useful as labour.
Methodology
Building on Foucault’s medical gaze, the authors compare Dutch West and East Indies from 1750–1950. They tie segregation decisions to how labour was organised, then follow later asylums and a 1930 Suriname statistic that most diagnosed people were still Afro-Surinamese.
Limitations
This is a comparative colonial history, not a clinical trial of chaulmoogra or MDT. The 80 per cent figure is for 1930 diagnoses in that setting, not a universal racial law.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Dutch colonial leprosy segregation was the exception, used where rule was direct and plantation slavery made racialised workers disposable once they could not labour.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Comparative archival work can link medical decisions to economic structures. Comparing the Dutch West and East Indies from 1750 to 1950 shows compulsory leprosy segregation was the exception, tracking direct rule and plantation slavery, and that money, distance and communication blocked visible isolation elsewhere.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Scope is a trade-off. The leprosy study compares two colonies across two centuries and can generalise about segregation and labour, but its authors warn that the 1930 Suriname figure is not a universal racial law. The Glasgow School and nursing studies stay tightly local and can describe practice in detail, but say they cannot prove Glasgow outperformed Cambridge or score modern competence.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Scope is a trade-off. The leprosy study compares two colonies across two centuries and can generalise about segregation and labour, but its authors warn that the 1930 Suriname figure is not a universal racial law. The Glasgow School and nursing studies stay tightly local and can describe practice in detail, but say they cannot prove Glasgow outperformed Cambridge or score modern competence.
- Supports · Glasgow teamwork made scientific medicine
- Supports · How were nurses taught wound sepsis?
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Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.