Description
When the rising tide of nationalism in Africa reached its peak in the middle of the twentieth century, Africans began to look at their past with new eyes. They discovered there was some glory in chapters of their history which had once been smeared with nothing but indignity, and efforts began first to rediscover, and later to revere, the great African historical figures. One such figure was Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton, who was among the fathers of Africa’s socio-political renaissance of the nineteenth century. A man who made his mark with great political writings, Horton has been hailed as a great West African patriot and associated with the dawn of nationalism in modern Africa. From the extensive literature produced on Horton and West African politics, it would seem that his career has been fully analysed and his contributions to African society fully documented. However, Horton was by profession a medical scientist. He did as much pioneering work to promote medical science as he did for politics in West Africa. In this biography, Dr. Adelola Adeloye records the remarkable contributions of Dr. Horton to this field. Graduated first in his class of seven from the Fourah Bay Institute in 1853, Dr. Horton became one of the first Africans to study European medicine in London. From this start, he went on to become a pioneer in the advancement of medicine in Africa, from his papers about his combinations of modern science with the traditional methods of treatment in Africa, to his attempts to establish a medical institute dedicated to promoting the advancement of medical education for West Africans. Though economic conditions and his early death thwarted this final product, Dr. Horton’s contributions to the advancement of modern medicine in West Africa were felt not only in his own lifetime but in succeeding generations and generations to come.
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