Poonam Bala is visiting professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, Cleveland State University. She has been a post-doctoral fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London and Honorary Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh. She has taught at universities in the US, Canada and India, was a Visiting Professor in Pretoria/Cape Town and Associate Professor at the University of Delhi.

• Introduction, Poonam Bala; Chapter 1 ‘Re-Constructing’ Indian Medicine: The Role of Caste in Late Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century India, Poonam Bala; Chapter 2 The Resurgence of Indigenous Medicine in the Age of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: South Africa Beyond the ‘Miracle’, Steve Phatlane; Chapter 3 Medicine, Medical Knowledge and Healing at the Cape of Good Hope: Khoikhoi, Slaves and Colonists, Russel Viljoen; Chapter 4 Dealing with Disease: Epizootics, Veterinarians and Public Health in Colonial Bengal, 1850–1920, Samiparna Samanta; Chapter 5 Mahatma Gandhi Under the Plague Spotlight, Howard Phillips; Chapter 6 Plague Hits the Colonies: India and South Africa at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Natasha Sarkar; Chapter 7 The Blind Men and the Elephant: Imperial Medicine, Medieval Historians and the Role of Rates in the Historiography of Plague, Katherine Royer; Chapter 8 Physicians, Forceps and Childbirth: Technological Intervention in Reproductive Health in Colonial Bengal, Arabinda Samanta; Chapter 9 Not Fit for Punishment: Diagnosing Criminal Lunatics in Late Nineteenth-Century British India, Jonathan Saha; Chapter 10 Multiple Voices and Plausible Claims: Historiography and Colonial Lunatic Asylum Archives, Sally Swartz; Chapter 11 Death and Empire: Legal Medicine in the Colonization of India and Africa, Jeffrey M. Jentzen;

'Anyone interested in the mechanics of medical colonialism and its persistent impacts, meanings and interactions, will benefit from these fascinating and diverse new contributions which are deeply researched and lucidly presented.' Allan M Brandt, Harvard University 'the book performs the important task of bringing together a number of interesting research projects, and will be of interest to researchers and teachers not only in the field of medical history, but also imperialism and law, colonial knowledge formation and trans-national connections.' Imperial & Global Forum