Merchants, Malaria and Manliness: A Patient’s Experience of Tropical Disease.

From 1862 until 1874, John Holt lived on the island of Bioko (Fernando Pó), laying the groundwork for a company that would become one of the most influential trading houses in western Africa. During his time on the coast, Holt was almost continually ill with malaria and other tropical diseases, and his illnesses had a major impact on how he experienced and interpreted his life and work in Africa. This paper draws on Holt’s private papers, as well as merchant memoirs and the historiographies of medicine, hydrotherapy and masculinity to explore merchants’ views of illness and how they were deeply embedded in broader assumptions about manliness during a time of rapid imperial expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]