EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

The continent of Africa, parts of Asia, and the interior of Central and South
America were veritable graveyards for Europeans until the 1850s. The scourges of
malaria, yellow fever, and the additional African killer, sleeping sickness
(trypanosomiasi) prevented any real European colonial activities. What overcame
malaria was quinine. Known since the middle ages, 45 quinine was first used extensively
by the French in their conquest of Algeria in the 1830s. It was not made medicinal and
thereby useful until the 1840s and was not widely effective until it was used in solution,
as a prophylaxis, on a daily basis by the British in the 1850s. Sleeping sickness, on the
other hand, was more regional and waited until the first decade of the 1900s for an
initial cure. The conquest of yellow fever required both an understanding of the mode of
transmission, the mosquito, and the later development of a reasonably effective vaccine
in the later part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
The technological developments of the nineteenth century such as the railroad,
telegraph, and steamship in Europe and later in the colonies gave Europeans a
significant advantage over the transportation systems in place in Africa and Asia at that
time. From a military standpoint, however, the repeating rifle, smokeless powder, iron
ships, and later the machine gun prevented any effective means of native resistance and
often were absolutely devastating in their consequences. 46
The only item missing from this picture of political rationale, economic drive,
and technological ability were directions or maps. Prior to 1850 Africa south of the
45 Quinine had been used as early as the malarial epidemic in Rome in 1631 after being sent by
the Jesuit priest Agostino Salumbrino from South America. Its use and methodology however were not
understood.
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