Tropical diseases

ABSTRACT

The history of tropical diseases can be divided into three phases and these are considered in turn in this chapter. The first section deals with the period up to the beginning of the twentieth century, that is, before the notion of 'tropical diseases'. Recent work has shown that this should no longer be regarded as a dark age, but rather one where medical endeavour was structured in terms of medical geography and the notion of 'diseases in the tropics'. The second section looks at the decades around the turn of the century, which saw the elucidation of the aetiologies of the classical tropical diseases and the institutionalization of tropical medicine. The final section discusses the measures subsequently taken to control tropical diseases, which have to be taken in a wide context because of the interdependence of medical, social and political factors.(AU)