Making health public : English language newspapers and the medical sciences in colonial Malaya (1840s–1941)

Abstract

The print and broadcast media are traditionally vital vehicles for both the

transmission of information and framing of discussion on health, medicine, and

diseases. However, their roles have been largely peripheral in medical historiography. In

this respect, this paper explores the position of English language newspapers in colonial

Malaya in identifying and disseminating epidemiological data as well as commentaries

on public health issues and policies. These discussions provided a crucial platform in

linking public health discourses to a more literate and influential lay public and adding to

broader debates on the governance of the colony. Collectively, the articles and editorials

of the print media in British Malaya were not only indicative of the extent of

involvement of colonial civil society in public health. Their narratives also reflected

underlying tensions between state and society in addition to sociocultural anxieties over

the fluid labor and capital flows of the colonial political economy.