The period from 1895 to 1914 witnessed remarkable advances in public health and medicine. Concurrent with this time of improving clinical hygiene, Britain was consolidating its tropical empire in West Africa and making significant changes regarding its imperial policy. Imperial Tropical Medicine charts the co-evolution of these two movements, suggesting that their parallel development was far from coincidental and revealing medicine and health as one of the most powerful of late-colonial discourses. Looking for the first time at contemporary exhibitions, Johnson investigates a display put together in 1900 devoted solely to the presentation of 'kit' for healthy living in the tropical colonies and unravels the intriguing histories of commodities including tropical clothing and medicine chests. Journeying through both metropolitan and colonial sites and considering the perspectives of politicians, businessmen, missionaries, scientists, medical officers and local ruling elite, as well as that of ordinary British, African and South Asian men and women, this fascinating book tells the story of a changing, complex medical discipline and Empire that were inseparably intertwined.

Author Biography

Ryan Johnson completed an MSc at Imperial College London in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, completed his DPhil in the History of Medicine at Oxford and is currently Lecturer in Medical and Imperial History at the University of Strathclyde.