Health in Pietermaritzburg (1838-2008): A history of urbanisation and disease in an African city

This is a history of the health of the people of Pietermaritzburg, a developing city in Africa and capital of the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The book covers a period of about 170 years: from a time when a few explorers of European extraction started to settle themselves in a rural southern African valley, through the process of building and establishing a colonial town, followed by an apartheid city, and then a large multiracial and democratically governed metropolis of over 600 000 people. It shows how this process of creating and inhabiting a city changed people’s health, for better or worse; and looks at the impact of the built environment, the physical environment, the social and economic environment, and the policy and legal environment on health status.