In Sickness and in Death

During the Raj before the invention of modern vaccines and with only quinine to tide you over in case you caught a tropical disease the rates of mortality were staggeringly high. Indeed India's vulnerability to epidemics severely hampered Britain's various imperial endeavours in the subcontinent from mercantile travels to trade. How did the machinery of the Raj tackle killer diseases like cholera malaria kala azar (black fever) and kustha roga (leprosy)? What were the trajectories of these diseases and the patterns of their transmission? What efforts did the Empire make in managing and preventing them? In this book Ipshita Nath herself a student of medicine explores the impact the killer diseases had on the colonial enterprise in India. Meticulously researched and vividly written In Sickness and in Death sheds light on an interesting lesser-known aspect of life during the British Raj.