Introduction

Disease, together with the environment, set some of the important parameters within which West African societies and communities have operated, reflecting the challenges of both settlement and ecology, as well as documenting the history of contact between peoples. The African environment, and especially the tropical rainforests, supports a mass of bacteria and parasites, where even single-celled organisms can flourish. Indeed, for William H. McNeill, the migration of the first Africans from the tropical climes of their homeland - the cradle of humans - to the temperate climes of Europe, marked the beginning of an important developmental divide:

For McNeill, the disease epidemiology of the tropics represents a burden on development:

Defining ‘civilization’ from the Western perspective has always been a messy business, and the inherent problems in the above statement are apparent. This statement also creates the erroneous impression that the only factor Africans have had to battle with in the quest for their development is the environment, eliding the pivotal role that people - including outsiders - have played in the political economy of Africa. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel uses science in a historical context to illuminate the processes of human development from an even starting line, not just to rationalize the contemporary state of affairs by reading back into history. But McNeill was right about the rich biodiversity of the tropics and the presence of disease vectors that have afflicted humans and their livestock.