Tropical Fever (Medicine)

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The term tropical fever arose in the mid-1890s in the context of several court scandals in which excesses of violence in the German colonies were publicly discussed. The term was used for states of excitement in people (especially men) who were in the tropics. According to contemporary understanding, tropical fright expressed itself primarily in sexual or violent, rash and excessive acts and a loss of self-control. It was not a medical term in the narrower sense, but rather an everyday linguistic concept that was widely used in different contexts. Tropical fever, its causes and effects were discussed in literary texts, for example, in the novels of the same name by Frieda von Bülow and Henry Wenden. Diseases (tropical neurasthenia , malaria ) as well as climatic influences and the social situation in the colonies were considered to be the cause of the excitement , in particular a lack of social control, extensive power over the colonized population and excessively close (especially sexual) relationships with them. The reference to a tropical frenzy was often used as a justification, for example to explain acts of violence; The term was already criticized by contemporaries as a mere strategy of justification.

literature

  • Better, Stephan: Pathography of the Tropics. Literature, medicine and colonialism around 1900. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8260-4320-8 .
  • Better, Stephan: Tropical fever. March 5, 1904: Prince Prosper von Arenberg's acquittal. In: Alexander Honold, Klaus R. Scherpe (eds.): With Germany around the world: A cultural history of the foreign in the colonial era , Stuttgart: Metzler 2004, ISBN 978-3-476-02045-1 , pp. 300–309.
  • Bischoff, Eva: Tropenkoller: Male Self-Control and the Loss of Colonial Rule. In: Maurus Reinkowski, Gregor Thum (Ed.): Helpless imperialists. Imperial failure, fear and radicalization , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-31044-1 , pp. 117-36.
  • Schaper, Ulrike: Tropical frenzy. States of agitation and mood swings in colonial jurisdiction in the German colonies. In: InterDisciplines. Journal of History and Sociology, 6 (2015) 2: Between Passion and Senses? Perspectives on Emotions and Law , pp. 75-100.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stephan Besser: Pathography of the tropics. Literature, medicine and colonialism around 1900 . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg: 2013, p. 49.
  2. ↑ Werner: Mental illnesses . In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon , Vol. 1, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, pp. 688–90.
  3. ↑ Stephan Besser: Tropenkoller. March 5, 1904: Prince Prosper von Arenberg's acquittal . In: Alexander Honold, Klaus R. Scherpe (eds.): With Germany around the world: A cultural history of the foreign in the colonial time , Metzler Stuttgart 2004, p. 300–309, p. 301.