ABSTRACT
British Malaya was a very unhealthy place in the early years of this century. Malaria, ankylostomiasis or hookworm, venereal disease, tuberculosis, dysentery, pneumonia, beri-beri, cholera and still other diseases accounted for thousands of deaths annually in the 1920s. Many pneumonia deaths were due to tuberculosis. Chronic malnutrition combined with malaria, hookworm and diarrhea in many, perhaps most, pregnant women to produce high infant and maternal mortality. The paucity of scholarly attention may in part be due to the implicit acceptance of one of the conventional wisdoms about western imperialism, viz., that western medicine benefited indigenous people by waging a successful struggle against disease and death usually in a context of dirt and ignorance. In British Malaya, it was the time when the ideas of Joseph Chamberlain and Frederick Lugard converged, and health was the principal field of endeavor.
