World Distribution of Spirochetal Diseases
This map of World Distribution of Spirochetal Diseases for Yaws, Pinta, and Bejel showcases the epidemiology of the spirochetal diseases being represented through this map (Yaws, Pinta, Bejel), and included information on different factors affecting the prevalence of the diseases, including soils and temperatures, and natural vegetation and rainfall. The map is centered around Africa, with South America and Asia at center-left and center-right, respectively. The map uses a significant amount of red, a color commonly associated with negativity or death, to display disease locations, and this could be interpreted by viewers to represent many people infected with these diseases. In reality, a very small percentage of people in these countries actually had the spirochetal diseases this map displays.
This map was produced through collaborative efforts among the American Geographical Society, the United States Armed Forces, and international pharmaceutical corporations. The intentions of the cartographers must be considered greatly. The presence of military and private industry interests conflict with the presumption that the production of the maps was out of altruism. The presence of military and corporate entities in the cartographic process points towards an underlying intention of spreading American militarism and interventionism, as well as capitalism, to Africa, Asia, and South America. It came about during the Cold War, when the United States was using aid packages, technical advancements, and providing medicine to “Third World” and impoverished countries in attempts to exert its influence abroad and motivate newly independent “Third World” countries to implement governments that aligned with the Western world.
This map is able to show us how there exist underlying motivations in the cartographic process. Factual information displayed in this map was used furtively to justify objectionable actions, such as the use of foreign intervention to produce unstable governments and produce governments dependent on the United States for aid.