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.