This is the first major study of public health in British India. It
covers many previously unresearched areas such as European attitudes
toward India and its inhabitants, and the way in which these were
reflected in medical literature and medical policy; the fate of public
health at the local level under Indian control; and the effects of
quarantine on colonial trade and the pilgrimage to Mecca. The book
places medicine within the context of debates about the government of
India, and relations between rulers and ruled, and in emphasizing the
active role of the indigenous population it differs significantly from
other work in this subject area.