BMJ 1996;312:1160 (4 May)

Letters

Future of tropical medicine

EDITOR,--Any discussion/debate on "tropical medicine"1 should take cognisance of major differences between the formal discipline (which developed in the "western world" in the early days of the 20th century) and "medicine in the tropics."2 3 The former was to a large extent artificial, being designed to provide medical care for servants of Empire and Raj after return to Britain, and was largely moulded by governmental (political) pressures, with Joseph Chamberlain (British secretary of state for the colonies from 1895 to 1903) at the forefront.4 5

The structure of medicine in Britain is, and always has been, moulded by contemporary requirements. The time has now arrived, therefore, for this formal discipline to be phased out, and those infections formerly grouped under this umbrella shifted to the specialty of infectious diseases, which continues to be in need of expansion, especially with regard to research developments. Most infectious diseases units in Britain have added tropical . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Tropical medicine should become specialty of "health in developing countries"
D McLarty, K G M M Alberti, and N Unwin
BMJ 1996 312: 247-248. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Davie, A. P, Love, M. P, McMurray, J. J V (1996). Value of ECGs in identifying heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction. BMJ 313: 300c-301 [Full text]  
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ