This unique book is a history of health, disease and government policy in colonial Malaya. With insight and clarity, it explores the relationships between biology, environment, population and the structures and requirements of the state. The first account of its kind, it covers the period from the establishment of Colonial Office control to the outbreak of World War II.

As she traces the impact of colonialism on health, Lenore Manderson notes that this period was marked by dramatic economic expansion, rapid population growth and changes in patterns of infection.

Drawing on the contrasting environments created by colonial capitalism, the book emphasises the role of medicine in legitimating the colonial presence, reinforcing colonial hierarchies and providing a moral logic for imperialism. Much of it also focuses on the populations themselves, on the people whose ill health was directly related to the social and political economy of colonialism.

Viewing colonial Malaya through a series of complex lenses, the book integrates social and material history, historical epidemiology and demography, as well as theories of political economy, feminism and postcolonialism.