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Abstract

Medical policies, state and religious missions in Rwanda (1920-1940). An authoritative design of colonial medicine?

The Belgian health policy set up in mandated Rwanda after the First World War was mainly centred on some campaigns taking specifically yaws as a target. The struggle against this endemic disease (not fatal, but most disabling) was organized in a very systematic and authoritarian way.

This article looks into two of those yaws campaigns, questions their runnings and alterations, and finally brings to light the intra-colonial tensions between the health services and the administration on the one hand, between the colonizers and the African populations on the other hand.

Keywords: Medical policy, Rwanda, Belgium, Colonial medicine