ABSTRACT
The number of medical missionaries exploded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; in the same period, biomedical understandings and therapies—concerned with disease mechanisms, microscopes, and systematic patient histories—gained significant traction throughout Western societies. This chapter examines an aspect of the intersection of these two historical developments. It focuses on the belief of many mainstream Protestant missionaries, from the late nineteenth century onwards, that performances of modern biomedicine would help win converts by ‘destroying superstition’ among non-Christians. Drawing on examples from Africa and the South Pacific—those regions most closely associated by Europeans at the time with ‘heathenism’—this chapter outlines theological and cultural reasons why many missionaries came to believe that demonstrating biomedicine in action was important for evangelical success. Biomedicine functioned, according to mission supporters, as a figurative ‘object lesson’ in the natural and mechanical character of disease and illness.
