@article{1450405,
      recid = {1450405},
      author = {Robson, Charmaine,},
      title = {Missionary women, leprosy and indigenous Australians,  1936-1986 /},
      pages = {1 online resource (1 volume) :},
      note = {Includes index.},
      abstract = {This book focuses on twentieth-century Australian  leprosaria to explore the lives of Indigenous patients and  the Catholic women missionaries who nursed them.  Distinguished from previous historical studies of leprosy,  the book examines the care and management of the  incarcerated, enabling a broader understanding of their  experience. From the 1930s until the 1980s, respective  governments appointed the trained sisters to four  leprosaria across remote northern Australia, where almost  two thousand people had been removed from their homes and  detained under law for years - sometimes decades. The book  traces the sisters holistic nursing from early efforts of  amelioration and palliation to their part in the successful  treatment of leprosy after World War II. It reveals the  ways the sisters stepped out of their assigned roles and  attempted to shape the institutions as places of health and  hygiene, of European culture and education, and of  Christianity. Making use of accounts from patients,  doctors, bureaucrats, missionary men, and Indigenous  families and communities, the book offers fresh  perspectives on two important strands of history. First,  its attention to the day-to-day work of the Australian  sisters helps to demystify leprosy healthcare by female  missionaries, generally. Secondly, with the sisters  specifically caring for Indigenous people, this book  exposes the institutional practices and goals specific to  race relations of both the Australian government and  Catholic missionaries. An important and timely read for  anyone interested in Indigenous history, medical history  and the connections between race, religion and healthcare,  this book contextualizes the twentieth-century leprosy  epidemic within Australias broader colonial history.  Charmaine Robson lectures in history at the University of  New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and previously worked  as a pharmacist. She has been an Executive member and  Councillor of the Australian and New Zealand Society of the  History of Medicine (ANZSHM) since 2015, and President of  the New South Wales Branch since 2020.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1450405},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05796-0},
}