London School of Tropical Medicine Shaped by Colonial Past, Pseudoscience, Study Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) benefited from its colonial past and propagated notions in its research and teaching that were rooted in white supremacy and pseudoscience, a study out Thursday revealed.

"LSHTM was set up as a colonial institution and benefited from and contributed to British colonialism in a variety of ways between 1899 and 1960," Lioba Hirsch, the report's author, said in the study commissioned by the LSHTM in 2019.

The school was founded by the British Empire's Colonial Office, which administered British colonies. Funds for its establishment and running costs came from colonial contributions, which were derived from the exploitation of resources and labor in the colonies.

The school carried out research that aimed to strengthen British commercial interests in the colonies and protect colonial officers from premature death to such infectious disease as malaria and cholera. During both world wars, it was also instrumental in protecting British troops against tropical diseases and safeguarding imperial possessions.

Students and members of LSHTM staff traveled and conducted research on colonized populations across the empire, the study said. In at least one case, a British doctor deliberately infected Chinese "research subject" Hin-Lo with malaria to test his theory of mosquito-borne pathogen transmission.

All knowledge was consolidated at the LSHTM in London, further cementing its prestige and amplifying the "epistemic disconnect" between the metropolis and its colonies, the study said.

Some of the school's lecturers and staff were also dedicated to such racial pseudoscience as eugenics, which promotes improving a nation's genetic quality through selective procreation. Sanitation was used as a pretext for racial segregation and continued to shape the lives of colonized cities past independence.