Fear of ‘fever’ was uppermost in the minds of many travellers to West Africa in Victorian times. ‘Not just malaria…’ chronicles attitudes, treatments and discoveries regarding malaria from the time of David Livingstone through the early 20th century. Missionaries often found themselves in the position of serving as untrained doctors and nurses among the people they went to evangelize. In addition, they suffered from the same maladies as the people did, and many died from malaria or other afflictions. Mary Slessor arrived in Calabar, in what is now southeastern Nigeria, to serve with the Scottish Presbyterian Mission in 1876. With only a few furloughs, she remained there until her death in 1915. The article relates instances of the illnesses and injuries she treated as well as those she suffered herself. She is remembered in Nigeria with statues and, along with David Livingstone, is one of Scotland's best-known missionary figures.
References
1.
KingsleyM.Travels in West Africa.Boston: Beacon Press, 1988: (originally London: Macmillan & Co., 1897): P. 688
StewartR.Old Calabar: A Brief and Homely Memoir of Rev. Thomas Wells Campbell, Missionary and Minister.Paisley, Scotland: J & R Parlane, 1884: P. 9
4.
McDonaldIB, An address by E. L. Barber at the Old Settlers Reunion in Troy Township, Indiana, September 3, 1881, cited in History of Whitley and Noble Counties, Indiana, Vol. 1: 231. http://whitley.kneller.com/bookl882/township/226_234.html (accessed 27 December 2004)
5.
KingsleyM, (op. cit. ref. 1): P. 684
6.
KingsleyM, (op. cit. ref. 1): P. 685
7.
KingsleyM, (op. cit. ref. 1): P. 689
8.
KingsleyM, (op. cit. ref. 1): P. 681
9.
Bruce-ChwattLJBruce-ChwattJM. Malaria and yellow fever In: Sabben-ClareEE, eds. Health in Tropical Africa During the Colonial Period. Based on the proceedings of a symposium held at New College, Oxford, 21–23 March 1977. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980: P. 49
ChristianCPlummerG.God and One Redhead.London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970: P. 158
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DowkonttGD. Murdered Millions.New York: The Medical Missionary Record, 1894: P. 17
17.
Ibid.: Pp. 17–18
18.
LoweJ.Medical Missions: Their Place and Power.New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894: P. 17
19.
Ibid.: P. 29, 42
20.
Ibid.: P. 282
21.
National Library of Scotland (for Church of Scotland Board of World Mission). The Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, 1 August 1890: P. 238
22.
PhippsWE. William Sheppard: Congo's African American Livingstone.Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2002: P. 62
23.
Ibid.: P. 61
24.
MorrisonW.Medical Work in the Congo. The Missionary1906:178–80
25.
WaddellHM. Twenty-nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa.London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1863: P. 453
26.
National Library of Scotland (for Church of Scotland Board of World Mission), MS7662/12. Foreign Mission Secretary. Letter to Mary Slessor, 2 July 1885
27.
This is most likely the Exeter Dispensary in Queen Street rather than the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in Southernhay or the City Hospital in Heavitree, but information is lacking
MuseumDundee, DUNMG, MSColl, 1986-396-6/1. LetterSlessor M. to StewartDavid, 10 December 1878
31.
LivingstoneWP. Mary Slessor of Calabar.London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915: P. 270
32.
National Library of Scotland, ACC 6825/15. Slessor M. Letter to ‘My Dear Friend’ (either a Mrs Cairns or a Miss Findlay), 2 September 1910
33.
Dundee Library.Slessor M. Letter to Charles Partridge, 17 February 1909
34.
Dundee Library.Slessor M. Letter to Charles Partridge, 17 April 1907
35.
Dundee Library.Slessor M. Letter to Charles Partridge, 7 July 1909
36.
Dundee Library.Slessor M. Letter to Charles Partridge, 3 March 1910
37.
Dundee Library.Slessor M. Letter to Charles Partridge, 27 April 1910
38.
GalleriesDundee McManus, MS Collection. DiarySlessor M., 1911–1912
39.
LibraryDundeeLetterSlessor M. to PartridgeCharles, 4 September 1911
40.
LivingstoneWP, (op. cit. ref. 31): P. 286; Dundee Library. LetterSlessor M. to PartridgeCharlesSr, 17 June 1913
41.
GalleriesDundee McManus, MS Collection. DiarySlessor M., 1914
42.
JeffreysMDW. Mary Slessor – Magistrate. The West African Review, June 1950: P. 628
43.
LivingstoneWP, (op. cit. ref. 30). See also ChristianCPlummerG, (op. cit. ref. 15); BuchanJ. The Expendable Mary Slessor.Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1980
