Trialing Drugs, Creating Publics: Medical Research, Leprosy Control, and the Construction of a Public Health Sphere in Post-1945 Nigeria

Between 1948 and 1967, the Leprosy Research Unit for Nigeria was stationed at the leprosy hospital and one-time colony at Uzuakoli, and some of the most important research on the chemotherapy of leprosy was carried out there. Drugs tested and standardized at Uzuakoli were circulated in semiformal networks among Nigerian leprosy workers and their patients at other leprosy settlements, in exchange for data on the administration and efficacy of new doses, combinations, and compounds. This took place against the backdrop of an increasing reluctance on the part of public health officials to contemplate the segregation of leprosy patients. This chapter explores transformations in the political economy of healthcare in Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s, using as its lens the spatial, social, policy, and technological ramifications of leprosy control and, specifically, the instance of the clinical trial in the context of decolonization and the internationalization of public health.