'Pestilential Emanations', Medical Knowledge, and Stigmatisation in Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1854-1920

Colonial medical knowledge in Saint-Louis, Senegal, shaped urban transformation through racialized perceptions of disease. French doctors initially framed the Senegambian region as a diseased environment under miasma theory, associating Africans with infectious agents and justifying hygienic measures like waste removal and cemetery closures. This stigmatization led to forced removals of the urban poor from the city center and later the entire island. The 1900 yellow fever epidemic shifted medical understanding toward germ theory, but racialism persisted, influencing urban planning regardless of theoretical frameworks.

Ngalamulume, K. (2021). ‘Pestilential Emanations’, Medical Knowledge, and Stigmatisation in Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1854-1920. eTropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 20(1), 226–246. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.20.1.2021.3792