A STRANGE CASE OF MEDICAL TOURISM: TRAVELLING WITH TUBERCULOSIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Résumé

This study represents a historical contribution to the niche of medical tourism. The context is South Africa during the late nineteenth-century, a period when flows of ‘invalids’, mainly from Britain, were encouraged to travel to the country in search of a ‘climate cure’ or relief from the ailment of tuberculosis or, more correctly, what at that time was known as ‘consumption’. South Africa’s climate was viewed as healthy which underpinned its emergence as a medical tourism destination. Arguably, the flow of consumptive invalids as medical tourists to South Africa was part of an international response associated with climatotherapy which was given status and recognition in the nineteenth century. The challenges and difficulties that confronted consumptive invalids in South Africa are discussed. These included the need for improved standards of accommodation and local food as well as opportunities for gainful employment. Invalids travelling to colonial South Africa in the nineteenth century had to be prepared for rough conditions and to an experience which would be much different to those visiting the health resorts of Europe. The research uses archival sources, traveller guidebooks and historical reports by medical specialists which build up the reputation of South Africa as a favoured destination for ‘invalids’. With improved medical knowledge, especially through Robert Koch’s discovery of the aetiology of the disease, climatotherapy and the ‘open-air treatment’ was no longer the recommended treatment for sufferers of tuberculosis. Accordingly, this early episode in medical tourism in South Africa was closed. Overall, this paper extends the growth of recent scholarship exploring the historical geography of tourism development in South Africa.

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