Tropical Medicine

Trade and conquest have always created a two-way traffic in disease. They have also fostered an interchange of medical ideas and techniques such as the use of cinchona and cocaine, vaccination, acupuncture and hypnosis.

Colonial powers had a vested interest in maintaining the health of troops and many of the books shown here reflect military investment in research and its application to the prevention of exotic diseases. Many of the doctors who saw service in distant countries became interested in natural history and anthropology which brought new dimensions into medical thinking, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries.