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Médecine et Santé Tropicales

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Docteur Emily, I presume ? Volume 22, issue 4, Octobre-Novembre-Décembre 2012

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Groupe d’intervention en santé publique et épidémiologie (GISPE), 82 bd Tellène, 13007 Marseille, Paris (www.gispe.org)

Dr Jules Emily, health corps doctor in the French Colonial Troops, is a prominent figure in the history of tropical medicine, even though no major discovery is attributed to him, nor any invention. He was however a privileged witness to a crucial episode of the colonial history of the continent of Africa, of which left a detailed description: the Marchand mission, and its great feat, the taking of Fachoda. Beyond this famous event, J. Emily's writings also illuminate the life of a colonial doctor at that time, a dense life, made up of discoveries and unceasing activities, filled by providing medical care for military personnel as well as for the populations administered by the colony. A life “ in which a curious person, exercising initiative and practicing with passion his daily medical-tropical tasks, can have a beneficial role in improving the health of the people under his responsibility”, as another colonial doctor, Dr Abbatucci, reported in 1927.