Leprosy and colonialism: Suriname under Dutch rule, 1750–1950 (Social Histories of Medicine, 6)

Leprosy and colonialism investigates the history of leprosy in Suriname within the context of Dutch colonial power and racial conflict, from the plantation economy and the age of slavery to the modern colonial state. It explores the relationship between the modern stigmatization and exclusion of people affected with leprosy, and the political tensions and racial fears originating in colonial slave society, exerting their influence until after the decolonization up to the present day. In the book colonial sources are read from shifting perspectives, of the colonial rulers and, ‘from below’, the ruled. Though leprosy is today a neglected tropical disease, recognizing influences of our colonial heritage in our global management of health and disease, and exploring the perspectives of other cultures are essential in a time in which migration movements make the permeability of boundaries, and transmission of diseases, more common then perhaps ever before.

‘Snelders provides a needed corrective to the historiography concerning how Western science began to see leprosy as a colonial problem. His monograph is one of very few that search for the racialized roots of leprosy discourse as far back as the eighteenth century. […] Snelders’s longue duree study greatly expands historians’ understanding of leprosy in Suriname as a microcosm of colonialism’s racial, social and administrative structures.’
Kristen Block, University of Tennessee–Knoxville, Social History of Medicine, vol 33, no 3, August 2018

‘Snelders’s ambitious book makes an important contribution and adds to our understanding of the history of medicine in the Caribbean and the wider colonial world.’
Juanita De Barros, Department of History, McMaster University, New West Indian Guide 92 (2018) 293–396

'In his detailed and comprehensive history of leprosy care in Surinam, Stephen Snelders highlights several fascinating and unique features of the history of leprosy in this former Dutch colony.'
Hans Pols, University of Sydney, Gesnerus: Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine and Sciences, Vol. 76, No. 1 (2019)

'Leprosy and Colonialism is rich in details, informed in historiographical debate, and written in fluid
prose. [...] The book will be of use not only to historians of medicine but, more generally, to historians and students of colonialism.'
Isis, Journal of the History of Science Society

Leprosy and colonialism investigates the history of leprosy in Suriname within the context of Dutch colonial power and racial conflict, from the plantation economy and the age of slavery to the modern colonial state. It explores the relationship between the modern stigmatization and exclusion of people affected with leprosy, and the political tensions and racial fears originating in colonial slave society. In the book colonial sources are read from both the perspective of the rulers and of the ruled. By investigating the complex reciprocities between knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards leprosy over time, the book investigates the Caribbean origins of modern framing and management of leprosy; origins that have so far been neglected in the historiography of colonial and imperial medicine.

Although leprosy is now a neglected tropical disease, its study today is vital in recognising the the influence of our colonial heritage and in exploring the perspectives of other cultures on the contemporary management of health and disease. this is in light of the current global migration movements which make the permeability of boundaries and the transmission of humans and therefore diseases, more common than perhaps ever before in human history.

The book will be of interest to students of colonial history, colonial medicine, and management of infectious disease in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies.

Stephen Snelders is Research Fellow in the Freudenthal Institute of the Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands