Abstract
Citation: Dlamini, S.R. 2016. The introduction of western medicine in Southern Africa : the case of Ainsworth Dickson Nursing Training School in Bremersdorp, Swaziland, 1927–1949
From July 1927, Bremersdorp, now Manzini, became the first medicalmission and a centre of western healing and health in colonial Swaziland, which at that time, was replete with traditional healers and healing methods. Varying interests gave birth to this medical mission, one of which was the need to replace traditional methods of healing with western biomedicine. Its establishment initiated the colonial state’s financial involvement, at a very early stage, in the development of the healthcare of the Swazis. This paper examines the evolution of nursing education in colonial Swaziland by providing a brief historiographical terrain and showing how Swaziland fits into it. The paper also provides an overview of the birth of colonialis! m in Swaziland and demonstrates its role in the origin of nursing education in the 1920s. By so doing, this paper not only contributes to the growth of medical history in Southern Africa but also unravels the history of nursing education in a manner that shows both the contribution of the state and that of transformative events in the development of nursing education, revealing in the process, conjunctive interests of the state and the Church of the Nazarene (CON) and the intersection of these interests.