Trypanosomiasis, tropical medicine, and the practices of inter-colonial research at Lake Victoria, 1902-07

ABSTRACT As sleeping sickness appeared in epidemics across Africa c. 1900, it stimulated a race among colonial medical personnel and Europe-based scientists to discover its causative pathogen, its mode of transmission, and, ideally, a cure. Scientists circulated between hubs of research in Europe and key field sites in Africa, monitoring each other’s progress and often maintaining long-term relationships colored by collaboration and competition. The Lake Victoria littoral was an epicenter of both significant mortality and important research before WWI. This article explores the intellectual implications of colonial connectivity at local scale, focusing on changing ideas about sleeping sickness, the communication of research strategies and methods, and the circumstances of life and research in this imperial hinterland and colonial borderland in eastern Africa. Exploring research dynamics around Lake Victoria illuminates the inadequacies of colonial scientific and medical capabilities and both the generative and limiting aspects that the contingencies of colonial research created.