"[N]ewspaper and journal articles from the mid-nineteenth century suggest that colonial authorities suppressed the practice of myalism, in part, because the unorthodox healing rituals of practitioners were viewed as a form of fraud. Amidst outbreaks of cholera and other diseases, black Jamaicans increasingly sought treatment from myalist healers because western medical care was wholly inadequate to serve the population of Jamaica, with a mere fifty physicians in the entire colony in 1860, a decline from around two hundred on the eve of emancipation in 1833. Colonial officials and missionaries frequently argued that unless the number western medical practitioners increased, Jamaicans would continue to seek treatment from “charlatans” for their ailments. For instance, in 1840, Joseph John Gurney  who travelled to the Caribbean as a missionary, observed that myalism prevailed in some parts of Jamaica stating that “deprived as the negroes now are of regular medical attendance, some of them have recourse to these medical quack doctors, to the great danger of their lives.”"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Jamaica
14 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Jamaica →
Related Quotes
"Although oath-taking at the outset of Jack’s 1824 rebellion had followed the eighteenth century pattern, which was re…"
"In addition to the Baptists, Methodist missionaries commenced a concerted effort to convert Africans in Jamaica aroun…"
"Although black preachers were common in both Methodist and Native Baptist ministries, the latter would become the cen…"
"It is an incredibly provincial and oppressive place. There are things about it like the landscape, and some of the pe…"
"when I was growing up in Jamaica it was still a colony, and the teachers I had at Saint Andrews were, for the most pa…"
"Jamaicans are very comical people, and laughter is a way of coping with life’s displeasures. Also, when you make some…"
"Oliver Cromwell intended Jamaica to serve as a base for plunder, much like Providence Island a few decades before—inc…"
"A 2021 decision by the Jamaica Court of Appeal, whose grounds have recently been published, discusses the interesting…"
"If we look about us we see the lengthening shadows of a thousand small corruptions creeping across the landscape of o…"
"Jamaica and , the centerpieces of the eighteenth century British and French colonial systems, respectively, were soci…"