Medicine and German Colonial Expansion in the Pacific: the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands

Eckart, Wolfgang U. (2022). "Medicine and German Colonial Expansion in the Pacific: the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands". In Macleod, Roy; Lewis, Milton (eds.). Disease, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion. 19. London, UK: Routledge.

Abstract: Before 1920, Germany was in possession of a colonial empire in Africa, China, and in the southwestern Pacific covering in total an area of about 1,140,000 square miles. The Marshall Islands became German in October 1885; Kiau-chou, a small spot on the Chinese shore, was occupied in 1897; the Caroline and Mariana Islands were bought from Spain in 1899; and finally four Samoan Islands came into German possession following agreements with the United States in 1900. This chapter discusses the characteristic aspects of German colonial medicine in the Pacific area. When German doctors began their medical services in the Carolines, there seemed to be no doubt that the native population of the Western Carolines, and Yap in particular, was declining rapidly. The Marshall Islands in the western Pacific, forming two chains from northwest to southeast, and comprising only thirty-two atolls with a total land area of 65 square miles, were Germany’s smallest colonial territory.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003278245-6
OpenAlex: W4220804355