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Abstract
Guy Geltner, the historian of cities and medicine, in his study of medieval urban Italian health regulatory bodies pushes the historian to question how we view the totality of methods that those in power used to create, manage and discipline a healthy city. He terms these multiplicity of systems, healthscaping. It is a term that I believe is helpful to understand the various ways in which the state, the Suez Canal Company and local health officials used the tools at hand to police employees, residents, and travelers along the Suez Canal. This paper will look at the different institutions, individuals, and officials involved in the processes to create healthy cities, in Port Sa‘īd, Isma‘iliyya and Suez. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which urban/public spaces, as well as the built environment were managed and engineered as part of a project of healthscaping at the Suez Canal. Institutions like hospitals and quarantine sites were engineered to serve the needs of the towns and canal company, and included modern sanitation technology as part of their design. Additionally, they were spaces where individuals and the natural environment were disciplined, in order to regulate the health of the towns and residents. By examining the hospitals, as well as other sites of socio-medical discipling we can form a better idea about the larger health project along the Suez Canal. This paper uses the colonial company archive of the Suez Canal Company to interrogate the schematics, photography, and the plans. The colonial archive is used because of its extensive material, but also due to the lack of access and paucity of sources elsewhere.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries