"[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.”"