Social thoughts and medical missionaries in Yorubaland, 1900-1930

The missionaries were the forerunners of colonization in Africa and elsewhere. They shared the sameburden with their colonial allies, which included Christianity, Commerce and, Civilisation. This thesisexamines how the activities of medical missionaries shaped indigenous medical thoughts of Yoruba landin the early twentieth century. By analyzing relevant primary and secondary sources, this thesis discoveredthat the deployment of medical factors to Christianise the Yorubas provoked a loss of trust in indigenousmedicine and other cultural practices in early twentieth-century South West Nigeria. It, therefore, arguesthat missionaries played a substantial role in engendering adverse social thoughts of Yoruba medicine.Other research had focused on the social impacts of medical missions on Yoruba people without delineatinghow this impacted the social thoughts of the populations from colonial intercourse. A study of this caliberwould throw new light on the interplay between the missionaries and colonial medicine in the context ofcolonized societies. It would further illuminate new understandings of the social role of medicalmissionaries of local populations.