ABSTRACT
The extensions of western colonial power into the
tropical world during the nineteenth century brought
in their wake acute medical problems. Western doc-
tors trained in the medical schools of Europe and
North America found themselves trying to cope with
an increasing number of severe diseases that were
either wholly absent from, or poorly covered in, the
conventional medical curriculum. Most of the dis-
eases were vector-borne (for example, malaria
(Figure 7.1) and yellow fever) whose transmission
involved an unfamiliar range of parasites (such as
trypanosomes and schistosomes). Their description
and treatment were brought together at the end of
the century in a path-breaking textbook by a British
physician with long experience in the tropics, Patrick
Manson (Figure 7.2). His influential Tropical Diseases was first published in 1898; a century later and now
in its twentieth edition, the volume remains in print.
