Recent historical work on global health and the threat of infectious disease in Africa has looked at the ecology of infections, disease trajectories, colonial interventions and the impact of disease on local communities in varied geographic landscapes and cultural responses. A particularly valuable avenue of analysis has explored racial prejudices of colonial anti-syphilis programmes, largely looking at sexually transmitted syphilis. As a point of departure from this work, this article examines the history of non-venereal treponematoses in southern Africa with a focus on the ethnicisation of endemic syphilis, or ritshuswa, in the Bakwena reserve (now Kweneng district) in colonial Botswana. The article uses as its evidentiary basis colonial reports and letters located at the Botswana National Archives and Records Services, World Health Organisation reports, early missionary and travellers’ accounts and the thesis of Dr A.M. Merriweather, a local clinician and researcher who addressed endemic syphilis in the Bakwena reserve. The aim is to understand the human ecology of endemic syphilis through a critical analysis of power relations between Tswana mainstream society and ethnic minorities within the context of a history of socio-economic inequalities.

最近关于全球健康和非洲传染病威胁的历史研究着眼于感染的生态学、疾病轨迹、殖民干预以及疾病对不同地理景观和文化反应中当地社区的影响。一个特别有价值的分析途径探索了殖民地抗梅毒计划的种族偏见，主要着眼于性传播梅毒。作为这项工作的出发点，本文考察了南部非洲非性病螺旋体病的历史，重点关注地方性梅毒或 ritshuswa 的种族化，在博茨瓦纳殖民地的 Bakwena 保护区（现为 Kweneng 区）。这篇文章使用位于博茨瓦纳国家档案和记录服务处的殖民地报告和信件、世界卫生组织报告、早期传教士和旅行者的叙述以及 AM Merriweather 博士的论文作为证据基础，AM Merriweather 是一位当地临床医生和研究人员，他在巴奎纳保护区 目的是通过在社会经济不平等的历史背景下对茨瓦纳主流社会与少数民族之间的权力关系进行批判性分析，了解地方性梅毒的人类生态学。