The Damming of the Nile: A History of Environmental Change and Public Health Challenges
Before the mid-19th century, Egyptian agriculture was intrinsically linked to the annual flood cycle of the Nile River. Late summer brought gushing floodwaters that spread across basins, depositing nutrient-rich soil essential for cultivating crops like wheat, barley, and Egyptian clover.
However, the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 marked a turning point, initiating large-scale dam-building projects that fundamentally altered the landscape and, the health of rural Egyptian populations. These changes inadvertently created conditions conducive to the spread of parasitic diseases, most notably schistosomiasis.
The Rise of Schistosomiasis and Public Health Interventions
The construction of canals to channel water for irrigation, while enabling year-round agriculture, also created fresh breeding grounds for freshwater snails – vectors for the parasites that cause schistosomiasis. Exposure to these canals became commonplace, as people worked, collected water, and children played nearby. The stagnant water and moist soil surrounding the canals also became repositories for waste, further facilitating disease transmission. One variant of schistosomiasis can cause severe liver damage if left untreated.
In the 20th century, the Egyptian state implemented extensive programs to combat parasitic diseases, utilizing environmental chemicals and mass treatment campaigns. However, some of these interventions inadvertently worsened the problem. For example, in the 1920s and 1930s, the use of poorly sterilized glass syringes during schistosomiasis treatment led to the spread of hepatitis B and C The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt.
As Associate Professor of History Jennifer Derr explains, public medicine, rather than solely curing disease, sometimes became part of the problem.
A Global Perspective on Disease and Environmental Change
Derr’s research, initially focused on the public health consequences of dam-building in Egypt, expanded to encompass the global spread of viral hepatitis in the latter half of the 20th century. She began to connect Egypt’s medical history with that of the United States and Europe, noting that the concept of informed consent in medical practice and our understanding of viruses are relatively recent developments.
“The idea of informed consent in the practice of medicine is fairly recent and our knowledge of viruses more developed than in the 1950s and 1960s,” Derr explained. “In the second half of the twentieth century, hepatitis spread through deliberate infections as well as engagements with medicine that included blood transfusions, vaccinations, and other invasive medical procedures.”
Recent scholarship and journalism have documented instances of both deliberate and accidental hepatitis infections in the US and Europe.
The Lasting Impact of Chemical Interventions
Derr’s operate also examines the effects of chemical interventions intended to control schistosomiasis. Some treatments not only failed to eradicate the disease but also caused bodily harm. The long-term impact of environmental chemicals used in these interventions on rural populations remains a concern.
Derr poses the question: “How did we build an infrastructure out of chemicals in the second half of the twentieth century, and how do these chemicals continue to exist and act on our bodies in unpredictable ways?”
Upcoming Lecture: World Wounds: The Damming of the Nile River and the Transformation of Medicine
Jennifer Derr will explore these themes further in her upcoming Nauenberg History of Science Lecture, World Wounds: The Damming of the Nile River and the Transformation of Medicine. The lecture will be held on April 7 at 6 p.m. At the Music Center Recital Hall at UC Santa Cruz and is free and open to the public. Registration is available for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Derr’s first book, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt, received the 2020 Middle East Political Economy Book Prize. She was also awarded a CAREER award by the National Science Foundation in 2019 to support her research on the history of science at the intersection of biomedical and environmental concerns.
Her forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Organ That Traveled the World: Medicine, Capitalism, and the Environmental Body, investigates how capitalist environments have shaped our bodies and influenced medical practice. In Egypt, liver damage became prevalent—not due to alcohol consumption, as in Western contexts, but from parasites, viruses, and medical interventions.
The Nauenberg History of Science Lecture series honors Michael Nauenberg, a founding faculty member of the Physics Department at UC Santa Cruz, and emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary scholarship connecting the sciences and humanities.
The lecture is presented by the UC Santa Cruz Emeriti Association and co-sponsored by the Science & Justice Research Center, The Humanities Institute, the Humanities Division, the Environmental Studies Department, the History Department, and the Center for the Middle East and North Africa (CMENA).
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