ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the development of post-colonial medical systems, the forces that have shaped them, and to present some explanations for their relative resistance to change. Post-colonial scholarship raises important questions for the history of medicine in the post-colonial era. Colonial medical authorities generally discounted the medical knowledge of local populations, and at times persecuted indigenous health practitioners. The post-war period brought about significant changes in the practice of colonial medicine. Local medical knowledge continued to be undervalued and little effort was made to incorporate indigenous notions of health and healing into post-colonial health systems until the late 1970s. The abandonment of efforts to insure popular participation in the development of health systems has prevented further localization of post-colonial health systems. Foreign advisors, primarily from Western industrial countries, flocked to newly independent countries, replacing or working along side former colonial administrators.
