Introduction: Disease, Medicine and Empire

‘Historians of Africa’, wrote K. David Patterson and Gerald W. Hartwig in their introduction to Disease in African History published in 1978, ‘have generally neglected the study of past health conditions – as well as the role of disease, health care and medicine in history – despite the obvious importance of the disease burden on the African continent.’ ¹ That statement (partly through Hartwig and Patterson’s own labours) seems significantly less accurate today than a decade ago. The history of disease and medicine in general is not now as neglected as it once was and though much of that scholarly attention has focused on the role and impact of disease and medicine in European and North American societies, the rest of the world has come increasingly under scrutiny as well. Some areas have been more extensively investigated than others: the literature on Africa is now impressively varied and wide-ranging; ² that on South and Southeast Asia remains relatively impoverished, while the Pacific region and Australasia can boast a rapidly growing literature of its own. ³ Much more, doubtless, can and will be done, but it is at least clear that many historians are now aware of the richness of the medical archive and its value for the study of social, political, and economic history.