Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:08:23.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sanitized Modernity: Rural Public Health in Mid-Twentieth Century Khuzestan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bryan Sitzes Open the ORCID record for Bryan Sitzes [Opens in a new window]
Bryan Sitzes*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Existing histories of public health in Iran often center on elite or urban narratives. This paper shifts the focus to Iran’s villages by examining the twentieth century public health history of rural northern Khuzestan. It argues that Khuzestani villagers desired, rather than resisted, modern medical services. However, vertical decision-making and the prioritization given by public health planners to economic concerns over social well-being led to the uneven distribution of services and failure to fulfill the expectations of Khuzestan’s villagers. This paper uses memoirs, official reports, correspondence, and other records from the Development & Resources Corporation, along with reports from Iran’s Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, to bring a richer picture of Iranian villagers’ twentieth century history into focus.

Keywords

Public HealthMedicineKhuzestanRural IranSchistosomiasisDevelopmentSanitation
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1-2: Special Section: Medicine and Public Health in Modern Iran: Historical and Sociological Perspectives , March 2020 , pp. 43 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

An earlier version of this article formed a chapter in my master’s thesis, “Alienating Iranians from their Environment: Irrigation, Flood Control, and Public Health in Late Pahlavi Khuzestan” (University of Texas at Austin, 2018). I sincerely thank Kamran Aghaie and Faegheh Shirazi for their help and comments at that stage. Another version was presented at the Middle Eastern Studies Association annual conference in San Antonio, Texas on 16 November 2018, at the panel “Science, Medicine, Oral Histories, and Progress in Qajar, Pahlavi and Revolutionary Iran.” I benefited greatly from the feedback and encouragement from the panel chair, Soha Bayoumi, my co-panelists, and the audience. Additionally, the feedback provided by anonymous journal reviewers, Indrani Chatterjee, Stephen Nix, David Rahimi, and Babak Tabarraee immensely improved its quality and I am grateful for their comments. I am responsible for any remaining defects. Lastly, this project would not have been possible without the knowledge and generosity of Dale Correa (UT Austin) and the staff at Princeton University’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.

References

Anon. Activities of the Development and Resources Corporation in Iran: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 87th Congress, 2nd session (March 20, 1962) (Statement of Clapp, Gordon R., president of the Development and Resources Corp. and Lilienthal, David E., chairman of the board).Google Scholar
Afkhami, Amir, “Iran in the Age of Epidemics: Nationalism and the Struggle for Public Health: 1889‒1926.” PhD diss., Yale University, 2003.Google Scholar
Afkhami, Amir, A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran’s Age of Cholera. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.Google Scholar
Anderson, Warwick, Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Ansari, Abdolreza, Khaterat-e Abdolreza Ansari. Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2010.Google Scholar
Amouzegar, J., “A Report on Public Health Problems of Khuzestan (Ostan 6),” 1957, DRC Records (886:2)]Google Scholar
Arfaa, F., Bijan, H., and Farahmandian, I. “Present Status of Urinary Bilharziasis in Iran.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 61, no. 3 (1967): 358–367. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(67)90009-0Google Scholar
Arfaa, F., Farahmandian, I., Sahba, G.H., and Bijan, H. “Progress Towards the Control of Bilharziasis in Iran.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 64, no. 6 (1970): 912-917. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(70)90111-2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arfaa, F., Sabbaghian, H., and Bijan, H. “Studies on Schistosoma Bovis in Iran.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 59, no. 6 (1965): 681–683. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(65)90099-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arfaa, F., Sahba, G.H., Jamshidi, C.H., and Ardalan, A. “Preliminary Trial of the Effect of Hycanthone (Etrenol) in the Mass Treatment of Urinary Bilharziasis.” International Journal for Parasitology 2 (1972): 369–372. doi: 10.1016/0020-7519(72)90075-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Azizi, Mohammad Hossein MD, and Azizi, Farzaneh. “Government-Sponsored Iranian Medical Students Abroad (1811‒1935).” Iranian Studies 43, no. 3 (2010): 349–363. doi: 10.1080/00210861003693885Google Scholar
Bishop, Isabella Bird, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891.Google Scholar
Carse, Ashley, Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure at the Panama Canal. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie, “Riza Shah, the Fall of Sardar Asad, and the ‘Bakhtiyari Plot.’” Iranian Studies 38, no. 2 (2005): 211–245. doi: 10.1080/00210860500096311CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curzon, George, Persia and the Persian Question. Vol. 2. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892.Google Scholar
Datta, Arunima, “‘Immorality’, Nationalism and the Colonial State in British Malaya: Indian ‘Coolie’ Women’s Intimate Lives as Ideological Battleground.” Women’s History Review 25, no. 4 (2016): 584–601. doi: 10.1080/09612025.2015.1114326CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derr, Jennifer, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durand, E.R., An Autumn Tour (In Western Persia). Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd., 1902.Google Scholar
Ebrahimnejad, Hormoz, Medicine, Public Health and the Qajar State: Patterns of Medical Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Iran. Leiden: Brill, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebtehaj, Abolhassan, Khaterat-e Abolhassan Ebtehaj. Tehran: Entesherat-e Elmi, 1996.Google Scholar
Ehsani, Kaveh, “Social Engineering and the Contradictions of Modernization in Khuzestan’s Company Towns: A Look at Abadan and Masjed-Soleyman.” International Review of Social History 48, no. 3 (2003): 361–399. doi: 10.1017/S0020859003001123CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekbladh, David, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ettling, John, The Germ of Laziness: Rockefeller Philanthropy and Public Health in the New South. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floor, Willem, Public Health in Qajar Iran. Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2004.Google Scholar
Floor, Willem, Studies in the History of Medicine in Iran. Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2018.Google Scholar
Gilman, Nils, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Good, Byron J., “The Transformation of Health Care in Modern Iranian History.” In Continuity and Change in Modern Iran, ed. Bonine, Michael, and Keddie, Nikki R., 57–80. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Goodell, Grace, The Elementary Structure of Political Life: Rural Development in Pahlavi Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Gremliza, F.G.L., “Report on the Operations of a Mobile Medical Field Unit and on a Public Health Survey in the Deshteh-Mishan Area of the Khuzestan Region: December, 1958, to June, 1959,” 1959, DRC Records (886:3).Google Scholar
Gremliza, F.G.L., “Selected Ecological Facts on Health in the Dez Pilot Irrigation Area,” 1966, DRC Records (886:5).Google Scholar
Gremliza, F.G.L., “Operation of a Mobile Medical Field Unit and Public Health Survey in Dez Irrigation Project Area for the Period September 1959 through June 1960,” 1960, DRC Records (885:7).Google Scholar
Gryseels, Bruno, “Schistosomiasis.” Infectious Disease Clinics of North America 26, no. 2 (2012): 383–397. doi: 10.1016/j.idc.2012.03.004CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Daniel, Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Harris, Kevan, A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooglund, Eric, Land and Revolution in Iran, 1960‒1980. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Janeballahi, Mohammad Sa’id, Pezeshki-ye Sonnati va Ameyanah-ye Mardom-e Iran ba Negah-e Mardom’shenakhti. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1390(2010‒11).Google Scholar
Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh, Conceiving Citizens: Women and Politics of Motherhood in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Kasravi, Ahmad, Tarikh-e pansad saleh-ye Khuzestan. Tehran: Donya-e Ketab, 2006.Google Scholar
Kazemi, Farhad, “Peasant Uprisings in Twentieth-Century Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.” In Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East, ed. Kazemi, Farhad, and Waterbury, John, 101–124. Miami: International University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Kazemi, Farhad, and Abrahamian, Ervand, “The Nonrevolutionary Peasantry of Modern Iran.” Iranian Studies 11, no. 1 (1978): 259–304. doi: 10.1080/00210867808701546CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khademvatan, Shahram, Salmanzadeh, Shokrollah, Foroutan-Rad, Masoud, and Ghomeshi, Mohammad. “Elimination of Urogenital Schistosomiasis in Iran: Past History and the Current Situation.” Parasitology 143 (2016):1390–1396. doi: 10.1017/S0031182016000883CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khazeni, Arash, Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth Century Iran. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Koyagi, Mikiya, Untitled. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Latifpur, Ahmad, Khuzestan dar asr-e Qajar. 2 vols. Tehran: Entesherat-e Farhang-e Maktub, 2013.Google Scholar
Layard, Austen, Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia. Vol. 1. London: John Murray, 1894.Google Scholar
Layard, Austen, Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, including a residence among the Bakhtiyari and other wild tribes before the discovery of Nineveh. Vol. 2. London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1887.Google Scholar
Lilienthal, David, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. IV: The Road to Change, 1955‒1959. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.Google Scholar
Lilienthal, David, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. V: The Harvest Years, 1959‒1963. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.Google Scholar
Mead, T.A., “Medical and Health Problems in Khuzestan,” 1958, DRC Records (885:6)]Google Scholar
Mikhail, Alan, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadim, Abolhassan, “History of the School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research of Tehran University.” Archives of Iranian Medicine 18, no. 12 (2015): 868–870.Google ScholarPubMed
Najm al-Mulk, Abd al-Ghaffar, Safarname-ye Khuzestan. Tehran: Elmi, 1962.Google Scholar
Najmabadi, Afsaneh, Land Reform and Social Change in Iran. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Nash, Linda, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.Google Scholar
O’Gorman, Emily, “Imagined Ecologies: A More-Than-Human History of Malaria in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, New South Wales, Australia, 1919‒45.” Environmental History 22, no. 3 (2017): 486–514. doi: 10.1093/envhis/emx056CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qasemi, Ahmad, Barrasi-e Vaz’-e Ejtema’i va Eqtesadi-e Rusta-ha-ye Mantaqe-ye Tarh-e Abyari-e Sad-e Pahlavi (Dezful). Tehran: Vezarat-e Amuzesh va Parvaresh, 1968.Google Scholar
Rahimi, David, “Remembering Revolution: The Iranian Diaspora and the 1978‒1979 Revolution.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Salmanzadeh, Cyrus, Agricultural Change and Rural Society in Southern Iran. Whitstable: Whitstable Litho, 1980.Google Scholar
Satralker, P.A., “Diseases and other Health Hazards in Khuzestan Region-Iran,” 1957, DRC Records (885:2)]Google Scholar
Schayegh, Cyrus, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and 1930s.” Iranian Studies 34, no. 4 (2002): 342–343.Google Scholar
Schayegh, Cyrus, Who is Knowledgeable is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900‒1950. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Scott, James, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Scott, James, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Seyf, Ahmad, “Iran and Cholera in the Nineteenth Century.” Middle Eastern Studies 38, no. 1 (2002): 169–178. doi: 10.1080/714004431CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shahmirzadi, Hasan, “Sazman va Modiriʿat.” ʿOmran-e Khuzestan. Foundation for Iranian Studies. https://fis-iran.org (accessed August 30, 2018).Google Scholar
Shahnavaz, Shahbaz, Britain and the Opening Up of South-West Persia 1880‒1914: A Study in Imperialism and Economic Dependence. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.Google Scholar
Sutter, Paul, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Nature? Entomological Workers and Environmental Change during the Construction of the Panama Canal.” Isis 98, no. 4 (2007): 724–754. doi: 10.1086/529265CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, C.E., “Report and Recommendations on a Health Program for the Khuzestan Region,” 1959, DRC Records (885:8)]Google Scholar
Valencius, Conevery Bolton, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2002.Google Scholar
Webel, Mari K., “Mapping the Infected Landscape: Sleeping Sickness Prevention and the African Production of Colonial Knowledge in the Early Twentieth Century.” In “Forum: Technology, Ecology, and Human Health Since 1850.” Environmental History 20, no. 4 (2015): 722–735.Google Scholar
White, Richard, The Organic Machine. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.Google Scholar
Williamson, J.W., In a Persian Oil Field: A Study in Scientific and Industrial Development. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927.Google Scholar
Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza, The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.Google Scholar