This dissertation examines the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history of the Aedes aegypti mosquito and the viral illnesses chikungunya and dengue from the Indian Ocean port town of Durban, South Africa. Histories of Ae. aegypti and yellow fever in the Atlantic World occupy an unmistakable niche in medical and environmental historiographies. Studies of this mosquito at home in Africa and abroad in the Indian Ocean World are lacking. This dissertation addresses that lacunae.
A globally integrated industrial economy, mushrooming urban growth in tropical and subtropical regions, absent or overwhelmed municipal water supplies, faster forms of transportation, and rising levels of interconnection increase the likelihood of epidemics of viral illness transmitted by Ae. aegypti. Durban offers a vantage point to examine these transformations during the era of the New Imperialism. The Ae. aegypti mosquito casts Durban as the southwest corner of the Indian Ocean rimlands; East Africa’s southernmost urban center; and a humid subtropical settler society port and sugar region perched on the edge of ‘Neo-Europe.’
Facing the Indian Ocean World, I argue that explosive pandemics during the mid-1820s and early 1870s—traditionally attributed to dengue—were more likely chikungunya. Further, the absence of similar pandemics attributable to dengue suggests that virus was already endemic in the region’s leading ports, an indirect indication of Ae. aegypti’s presence in the region. This contests hypotheses suggesting this mosquito reached Asia via the Suez Canal.
In Durban, epidemics of chikungunya and dengue during the 1870s reflect the port town’s connection to the Indian Ocean World and signal the presence of human-biting Ae. aegypti. I argue that clearing coastal forest for sugar production and town-building destroyed the ecological niche of indigenous sylvatic Ae. aegypti, while the agroecology of sugar and built environment of early Durban encouraged vector domestication and abundance in intimate proximity to people.
Durban’s chikungunya and dengue past is largely forgotten. A study of the city’s history with Ae. aegypti is, therefore, timely. In an era marked by zoonoses and emerging and reemerging infectious diseases environmental histories must grapple with the entangled agencies of human and nonhuman actors—pests, pathogens, and people. / 2023-06-08T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/42672 |
| Date | 08 June 2021 |
| Creators | Rotz, Philip D. |
| Contributors | McCann, James C. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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