White plague, black labor : tuberculosis and the political economy of health and disease in South Africa / Randall M. Packard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Packard, Randall M., 1945-

Series:

Comparative studies of health systems and medical care

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tuberculosis--South Africa--History.

Tuberculosis.

History.

South Africa.

Physical Description:

xxii, 389 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1989]

Summary:

Why does tuberculosis, a disease which is both curable and preventable, continue to produce over 50,000 new cases a year in South Africa, primarily among blacks? In answering this question Randall Packard traces the history of one of the most devastating diseases in twentieth-century Africa, against the background of the changing political and economic forces that have shaped South African society from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. These forces have generated a growing backlog of disease among black workers and their families and at the same time have prevented the development of effective public health measures for controlling it. Packard's rich and nuanced analysis is a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on South Africa's social history as well as to the history of medicine and the political economy of health.

Contents:

Introduction: Industrialization and the Political Economy of Tuberculosis 1

1. Preindustrial South Africa: A Virgin Soil for Tuberculosis? 22

2. Urban Growth, "Consumption," and the "Dressed Native," 1870-1914 33

3. Black Mineworkers and the Production of Tuberculosis, 1870-1914 67

4. Migrant Labor and the Rural Expansion of Tuberculosis, 1870-1938 92

5. Slumyards and the Rising Tide of Tuberculosis, 1914-1938 126

6. Labor Supplies and Tuberculosis on the Witwatersrand, 1913-1938 159

7. Segregation and Racial Susceptibility: The Ideological Foundation of Tuberculosis Control, 1913-1938 194

8. Industrial Expansion, Squatters, and the Second Tuberculosis Epidemic, 1938-1948 211

9. Tuberculosis and Apartheid: The Great Disappearing Act, 1948-1980 249

Epilogue: The Present and Future of Tuberculosis in South Africa 299.

Notes:

Bibliography: pages 367-377.

Includes index.

ISBN:

0520065743

0520065751

OCLC:

19393928