02594nam a2200265   4500000000100000008004100001260003800042653001500080653002300095653002700118653002000145653002600165653002900191653002600220653002200246653002400268653003000292653001600322653002400338653002100362100001300383245007000396520184400466020001802310       2022                            d  bSpringer International Publishing10aLeprosaria10aIndigenous history10aAboriginal Australians10aLeprosy nursing10aCatholic missionaries10aInstitutional healthcare10aHistory of healthcare10aTropical Medicine10aFemale missionaries10aAustralian race relations10aColonialism10a History of disease10aDisease epidemic1 aRobson C00aMissionary Women, Leprosy and Indigenous Australians, 1936–19863 a<p>This book focuses on twentieth-century Australian leprosaria to explore the lives of indigenous patients and the Catholic women missionaries who nursed them. Distinguished from previous historical studies of leprosy, the book examines the care and management of the incarcerated, enabling a broader understanding of their experience, beyond a singular trope of banishment, oppression and death. From the 1930s until the 1980s, respective governments appointed the trained sisters to four leprosaria across remote northern Australia, where almost two thousand people had been removed from their homes and detained under law for years - sometimes decades. The book traces the sisters’ holistic nursing from early efforts of amelioration and palliation to their part in the successful treatment of leprosy after World War II. It reveals the ways the sisters stepped out of their assigned roles and attempted to shape the institutions as places of health and hygiene, of European culture and education, and of Christianity. Making use of accounts from patients, doctors; bureaucrats; missionary men; and Indigenous families and communities, the book offers fresh perspectives on two important strands of history. First, its attention to the day-to-day work of the Australian sisters helps to demystify leprosy healthcare by female missionaries, generally. Secondly, with the sisters specifically caring for Indigenous people, this book exposes the institutional practices and goals specific to race relations of both the Australian government and Catholic missionaries. An important and timely read for anyone interested in Indigenous history, medical history and the connections between race, religion and healthcare, this book contextualizes&nbsp;the twentieth-century leprosy epidemic within Australia's broader colonial history.</p>
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