Knowledge of clinical tropical medicine is essential for every modern physician. The diseases of warm climates are no longer restricted by geographical boundaries because the scope and speed of air travel … make us all part of a global community.
Tropical Medicine (2013)
Tropical Medicine: A Clinical Text (2013), first published in 1964, is comprised of approximately 300 pages of text that cover all the important tropical diseases such as malaria, rabies, cholera, dengue and leprosy. As a physician who practiced in the tropics for a very long time, the author quite obviously has mastered the subject matter first hand through his own clinical experience. As the author himself notes, “There is no substitute in a medical career for the legitimacy and credibility earned in the daily care of individual patients.”
The level of prose is reminiscent of the way medical books used to be written, particular in Great Britain, before they became overly bloated with graphics and text. Cope’s Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen (2010), which I reviewed elsewhere, very much comes to mind here. Both books are timeless, concise, erudite, and quintessentially clinical). As the author himself notes, “Learning tropical medicine should not consist of merely memorizing parasitological and microbiological details. A clinical discipline depends on observations, and judgement.” And the book very much delivers on this principle; it explains how these microbiological details are relevant to the diagnosis and management of tropical diseases.
Tropical Medicine (2013)
Unfortunately, while the text is sublime, the images and tables are not. Images are grainy and in black and white and look like what I imagine the images in the first edition (1964) looked like. As the author himself notes, “[M]uch of the original text … as well as the photographs … has remained remarkably unchanged.” This is very unfortunate, and I hope that future editions of this book will have upgraded color photographs and tables.
All in all, Tropical Medicine: A Clinical Text (2013) is one of the finest medical books ever written. I recommend this book very highly to anyone who is interested in medical microbiology or infectious diseases in general, or in tropical diseases in particular. (The book can be regarded as a companion test to the more visual Tropical Medicine Notebook (2018), which I reviewed elsewhere on this site).
Participation questions
- What do you think of Tropical Medicine: A Clinical Text (2013)?
- What is your favorite infectious diseases book and why?
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