The Lomidine Files: The Untold Story of a Medical Disaster in Colonial Africa

This prize-winning study examines the nightmarish effects of the so-called "wonder drug" in preventing sleeping sickness in Africa.

After the Second World War, French colonial health services set out to eradicate sleeping sickness in Africa. The newly discovered drug Lomidine (also known as Pentamidine) promised to protect against infection, and mass campaigns of "preventive lomidinization" were launched across Africa. But the drug proved to be both inefficient and dangerous. In numerous ca...