This book is the first comprehensive study of the history of French medicine in nineteenth-century Algeria. It argues that the medicalization of Algerian was a priority for colonial regimes across the century, but that this goal was thwarted by gaps which lay between the imagined capacity of French medicine and its actual efficacy, by institutional rivalries, and by the manner in which medicine became a focus for the resistance of French domination and rule.

This book is the first comprehensive study of French medicine in nineteenth-century Algeria. It argues that the medicalization was a priority for colonial regimes, but this goal was thwarted by ineffectual French medicine, institutional rivalries, and the manner in which medicine became a focus for the resistance of French domination and rule.