Main description:

This work will be of considerable interest to scholars studying not just Burma but also neighbouring countries, notably Thailand, Indonesia, Malaya and India, as it contains valuable material on historical demography, epidemiology, public health and public administration in colonial times. Also general readers interested in the history of disease and its treatment, or the experiences of local populations under colonial regimes in Asia, will find the book highly informative. The book examines population trends in Burma during the 19th and 20th centuries, looking in particular at public health and the epidemiology of disease, and also presents a wide-ranging social history of modern Burma, relating the history of particular diseases to cultural beliefs and practices, as well as population movements, developments in agriculture and irrigation, nutritional trends, and the deployment of government servants and military personnel. The study uncovers much new information about Burma that will be of considerable interest to a wide range of scholars.
But what will be especially striking to all readers is the account of the indifference of the British to the health needs of their Burmese subjects, not least the refusal to implement the simplest of measures to reduce the appalling death toll.