Rabies and Resistance

Jennings, Eric T.

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-55967-8_3

Eric T. Jennings³

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies ((IOWS))

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Abstract

This chapter zooms in on a “scare disease” in the immediate post-conquest period. Rabies constituted a point of cultural tension and divergence over disease in post 1895 Madagascar. The Pasteur Institute and colonial authorities ascribed an extraordinary importance to the affliction, given the means at their disposal, and given the other epidemiological challenges facing them. Local peoples, in turn, met this expertise with some trepidation, and in some cases, outright defiance. This chapter considers, in turn, colonial health priorities, connections between Malagasy cures and Pasteurian remedies, perceptions of the disease’s vector (dogs), and its main victims (children), as well as issues of accommodation, resistance and rumor in a colonial context.

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Notes

1.
The exact text is reproduced as follows on the website of the French National Assembly: M. Christian Vanneste: “Comment ne pas vouloir donner comme exemple aux enfants d'aujourd'hui ces médecins français, premiers French doctors, qui libéraient Madagascar de la variole et de la rage avec André Thiroux, l'Indochine de la peste avec Alexandre Yersin, et l'Algérie de la malaria avec François-Clément Maillot?’ (Interruptions sur les bancs du groupe des députés communistes et républicains).” http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/cra/2005-2006/081.asp (last accessed in June 2016).
2.
J. Roux, “L’Insitut Pasteur de Madagascar: un siècle d’histoire au service de la santé publique” consulted on http://www.pasteur.mg/ipmroux.pdf in 2008. On medicine’s role in this “civilizing mission,” see Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize, pp. 48–50, 59–72.
3.
ANOM 211 COL 160, reports for 1964.
4.
There were 24 declared human cases of rabies in Madagascar between 1969 and 1978. The disease remains a significant problem to this day. P.J. Rakotonirina-Randriambeloma and P. Coulanges Epideémiologie de la rage à Madagascar,” in E. Kuwert, C. Mérieux, H. Koprowski and K. Bögel (eds), Rabies in the Tropics, New York: Springer Verlag, 1985, pp. 430–434.
5.
Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys, Mad Dogs and Englishmen: Rabies in Britain, 1830–2000 (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2007), p. 129.
6.
Bert Hansen, “America’s First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations for Medical Progress,” American Historical Review, 103 (1998): 402.
7.
Ibid, 380.
8.
Pemberton and Worboys.
9.
Jean Théodoridès, Histoire de la Rage: Cave Canem (Paris: Masson1986), pp. 238–240.
10.
Francis Koerner, “La protection sanitaire des populations à Madagascar, 1862–1914,” Revue Historique, 291 (1994): 439–458; Faranirina Esoavelomandroso (now Rajaonah) “Résistance à la médecine en situation coloniale: La peste à Madagascar,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 36 (1981): 168–190.
11.
Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, “Médecine coloniale et mythologie impériale républicaine,” L’Humanité May 31, 2008. For a fine examination of the memory wars over empire in France, see Romain Bertrand Mémoires d’Empire: La controverse autour du ‘Fait colonial’ (Paris: Editions du Croquant, 2006).
12.
Anne-Marie Moulin, “Patriarchal Science: The Network of the Overseas Pasteur Institutes” in Patrick Petitjean, Chaterine Jami, Anne-Marie Moulin, Science and Empires: Historical Studies about Scientific Development and European Expansion (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), pp. 307–309 and 317.
13.
G. Girard, L’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo (Antananarivo: Imprimerie moderne de l’Emyrne, 1930) already reported them “missing” (p. 15).
14.
Ibid., 7.
15.
“Institut Pasteur de Madagascar” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales 4 (1901), p. 141.
16.
Dr. Thiroux, “Fonctionnement de l’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo en 1900” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales (October-December 1901): 506.
17.
AIP IPO Rap, 1902 report.
18.
L’Echo de Madagascar, March 22, 1904.
19.
G. Girard, “Considérations sur la rage du chien et du chat à Madagascar et en particulier à Antananarivo” Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie exotique 27 (1934): 905.
20.
G. Girard, L’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo, p. 15. 1931 Pasteur Institute report, ANOM GGM 5(5) D25.
21.
Jorgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (Oslo: Oslo University Press, 1960), pp. 85–87.
22.
Gwyn Campbell, David Griffiths and the Missionary “History of Madagascar” (Leiden: Brill, 2012) pp. 293 and 384. On conflicts over hairstyles in nineteenth century Madagascar and their meanings, see Larson, History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement, pp. 240–253.
23.
Gwyn Campbell, “European observations on Madagascar during the reign of Ranavalona I” paper delivered at the Avignon workshop on Madagascar, May 28, 2016.
24.
ANOM, 4Z 120, Avis au public# 4, March 17, 1873.
25.
ANOM, 4Z 131, years 1882 and 1883.
26.
Genese Sodikoff’s current fieldwork on Malagasy responses to rabies in Moramanga suggests that guard dogs brought into protect grand villas have contributed to the current spread of the disease in that area. Paper delivered at the Madagascar workshop, Avignon, May 27, 2016.
27.
“La Rage” La Tribune de Madagascar, October 1, 1909: 4.
28.
CHETOM, 18H 36, p. 113.
29.
Jean Paulhan, Lettres de Madagascar, 1907–1910 annotated by Laurence Ink (Paris: Editions Claire Paulhan, 2007), pp. 171–172 (photograph on p. 172)
30.
Ibid., p. 304.
31.
Ibid., p. 400.
32.
Ibid., p. 284.
33.
Ibid., p. 401.
34.
Ibid., footnote 4, p. 402.
35.
Louis Lamarre, “Les sorciers fanatisent les rebelles malgaches en menaçant de les réincarner en chiens” Le Pays (Paris), June 15–16, 1947: 1–3.
36.
Jean-Luc Raharimanana, Rêves sous le linceul (Paris: Le Serpent à plumes, 1998), pp. 75–77.
37.
Antananrivo Annual, 1884: 23–24.
38.
Dr. C.F.A. Moss, “The diseases prevalent in Madagascar” Antananarivo Annual, 19 (1895): 330–342.
39.
ANM H1, 1901 Pasteur report.
40.
Ibid.
41.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report and Dr. Massiou, “Rapport sur le traitement antirabique à l’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo pendant l’année 1906” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales 1908: 600. Statistics across years appear in ANOM GGM 5(5) D6.
42.
ANM H1, Pasteur institute 1901 report.
43.
AIP IPO Rap, 1902 report.
44.
AIP IPO, Rap, 1910 report.
45.
ANOM, GGM 5(5) D17; GGM 5(5) D18; ANOM GGM 5(5) D25.
46.
Andersen, Regeneration through Empire, p. 125.
47.
ANM H 1 “Direction du service de santé: Rapport sur l’AMI de Madagascar en 1901.
48.
Gwyn Campbell, “Crisis of Faith and Colonial Conquest. The Impact of Famine and Disease in Late Nineteenth-Century Madagascar” Cahiers d'études africaines (1992) 32: 127: 409–453.
49.
Mad 2D 48, Antsirabe 1896.
50.
“Pour l’Institut Pasteur” Le Progrès de Madagascar, August 25, 1909.
51.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report.
52.
Gershon Ramisiray, Pratiques et croyances médicales des Malgaches (Paris: A. Maloine, 1901), p. 60.
53.
Ramisiray, p. 109.
54.
Alfred Grandidier, Ethnographie de Madagascar (Paris, 1908-1928) Volume 4, p. 458.
55.
Ibid., footnote 4.
56.
Dr. Thiroux, “Fonctionnement de l’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo en 1900” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales 14 (Oct–Dec 1901): 505.
57.
ANM H1, Pasteur institute 1901 report.
58.
AIP IPO Rap, 1902 report.
59.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report.
60.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report.
61.
AIP IPO Rap, 1904 report (a copy of which is also available at ANOM GGM 5(5)D3.
62.
Dr. Massiou, “Rapport sur le traitement antirabique à l’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo pendant l’année 1906” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales 1908: 607–608.
63.
AIP IPO Rap, 1910 report.
64.
Ibid.
65.
AIP IPO Rap, 1910 report.
66.
Dr. Salvat, “Deux cas de rage atténuée et guérie; un cas de rage vraie guérie spontanément” in Bulletin de la Société des sciences médicales de Madagascar 1909: 40–49.
67.
“Attention” Le Signal de Madagascar, August 8, 1908.
68.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report.
69.
AIP IPO Rap, 1910 report.
70.
G. Girard, L’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo, p. 18.
71.
AIP IPO Rap, 1904 report.
72.
ANOM GGM 5(5) D5, 1904 report.
73.
Dr. Neiret, “Le traitement préventif de la rage à Antananarivo pendant l’année 1905” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales (July to September 1906): 431–432.
74.
L’Echo de Madagascar, February 8, 1901.
75.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 report.
76.
Faranirina Esoavelomandroso, “Résistance à la médecine,” p. 177.
77.
AIP IPO Rap, 1904 report.
78.
On blood-sucking stories in continental Africa, see Luise White, Speaking with vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). On mpakafo, see Lucy Jarosz, “Agents of Power, Landscapes of Fear: the vampires and heart thieves of Madagascar” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12:4 (1994): 421–436; Louis Molet, La conception malgache du monde, du surnaturel et de l'homme en Imerina Vol. 2, Anthropologie (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1979), pp. 222–228, and Maurice Bloch, Placing the Dead. Tombs, Ancestral Villages and Kinship Organization in Madagascar (London: Seminar Press, 1971), pp. 31–32. On the resurgence of mpakafo narratives in times of epidemics, see Faranirina Esoavelomandroso, “Résistance à la médecine,”: 185.
79.
Dr. Salvat, “Deux cas de rage atténuée et guérie,” pp. 44–47.
80.
ANOM GGM 5(5) D25.
81.
Faranirina Esoavelomandroso, “Résistance à la médecine”: 169, 181–182.
82.
G. Girard, L’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo, p. 10.
83.
White, Speaking with vampires, p. 14.
84.
Charles Briggs, “Modernity, Cultural Reasoning, and the Institutionalization of Social Inequality: Racializing Death in a Venezuelan Cholera Epidemic,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 43, 2001: 674–676.
85.
ANOM, Madagascar 2D 77, report dated February 2, 1901.
86.
Le Signal de Madagascar, August 11, 1908: 2.
87.
ANM H1, Pasteur institute 1901 report.
88.
AIP IPO Rap, 1904 report.
89.
ANM Série H, 5, rapport sur l’assistance médicale en 1904; ANOM GGM 5(5)D 25.
90.
Dr. Massiou, “Rapport sur le traitement antirabique à l’Institut Pasteur de Antananarivo pendant l’année 1906” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales 1908: 616.
91.
Ibid.
92.
Archives du Museum d’Histoire naturelle, Paris (herafter AMHN), Decary diaries. Entry for July 18, 1926.
93.
Kathleen Kete, “La Rage and the Bourgeoisie: The Cultural Content of Rabies in the French Nineteenth Century,” Representations, 22, 1988: 89–107.
94.
Ramamonjisoa “Les maladies les plus répandues à Madagascar et l’accroissement des Malgaches,” Medical thesis, Université de Paris, 1911.
95.
Alexandre Kermorgant “L’assistance médicale indigène à Madagascar,” Annales d’Hygiène publique et de médecine légale (June 1908): 12.
96.
This situation cannot be attributed to the fact that rabies is not a “tropical disease,” since tropical medicine was very much the rage of the début du siècle. Indeed, Laurence Monnais has considered why smallpox was of so little interest to Pasteurians in early twentieth-century Indochina, despite its devastating effects in various constituent parts of Indochina. She concludes that it offered little room for new research, did not have the appeal of “tropical diseases,” and was consequently not an enticing avenue of research. Laurence Monnais-Rousselot, “La Variole et la vaccine en Indochine française’, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 309, December 1995: 513–514.
97.
Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Marriage of Convenience: Rockefeller International Health and Revolutionary Mexico (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006), pp. 50, 62.
98.
Dr.. Neiret, “Le traitement préventif de la rage à Antananarivo pendant l’année 1905,” Annales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales (July to September 1906): 431–432.
99.
Note that Massiou and Kermorgant used the same figures, though with different starting years.
100.
Massiou: 615.
101.
Neiret: 429.
102.
AIP IP Rap 28, 1903.
103.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 Report.
104.
AIP IPO Rap, 1903 Report.
105.
AIP IPO Rap, 1904 Report.
106.
Massiou: 605–606.
107.
ANOM, Madagascar PT 007.
108.
ANOM, Madagascar PT 147, letter from municipal services to the head of Antananarivo’s police, relating an April 23, 1941 incident.
109.
ANOM, Madagascar PT 147, April 1941, relevé des contraventions.
110.
ANOM, Madagascar PT 0015.
111.
Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

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Eric T. Jennings

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Jennings, E.T. (2017). Rabies and Resistance. In: Perspectives on French Colonial Madagascar. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55967-8_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55967-8_3
Published: 08 September 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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