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Social History of Medicine 1995 8(3):463-479; doi:10.1093/shm/8.3.463
© 1995 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Articles

‘A Medical El Dorado’? Colonial Medical Incomes and Practice at the Cape

ANNE DIGBY*

*School of Humanities, Oxford Brookes University Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0PB

SUMMARY This article focuses on a neglected area—the economics of colonial medicine. It examines medical incomes and practice in the Cape of Good Hope Colony before 1910 in relation to licensed practitioners in private practice. The imperial relationship shaped medical practice, notably in relation to a comparative early regulation of medicine, and an increasingly crowded medical market. The article suggests that Britain was exporting some of its problems—in the form of an oversupply of medical practitioners—to its empire. The opportunities for making a good medical income in the Cape are compared with those in Britain; and the article concludes that, although there were generally better opportunities to make high incomes in the Cape, the risks of professional failure were often greater.

Keywords: Cape; South Africa; Britain; empire; medical practice; medical income; doctor; patient; nineteenth century; twentieth century


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