The history of medical physics in Asia-Oceania goes back to the late nineteenth century when X-ray imaging was introduced, although medical physicists were not appointed until much later. Medical physics developed very quickly in some countries, but in others the socio-economic situation as such prevented it being established for many years. In others, the political situation and war has impeded its development. In many countries their medical physics history has not been well recorded and there is a danger that it will be lost to future generations. In this paper, brief histories of the development of medical physics in most countries in Asia-Oceania are presented by a large number of authors to serve as a record. The histories are necessarily brief; otherwise the paper would quickly turn into a book of hundreds of pages. The emphasis in each history as recorded here varies as the focus and culture of the countries as well as the length of their histories varies considerably.
In 1885, Gilles de la Tourette described 9 patients who suffered from a disorder characterized by involuntary movements, echolalia, echopraxia, coprolalia, and strange, uncontrollable sounds. In his article, Gilles de la Tourette presented some earlier descriptions of this disorder. To appreciate what first led Gilles de la Tourette to Tourette syndrome, however, it is necessary to turn to an article that he published a year earlier. In his 1884 article, Gilles de la Tourette cited several movement disorders that he thought were similar to each other, yet different from true chorea. After describing these disorders, namely, "jumping" of Maine, latah of Malaysia, and miryachit of Siberia, he briefly mentioned a boy in Charcot's ward in Paris, France, who seemed to exhibit the same condition. In an addendum, he then said that other cases were now surfacing in Paris and that he would write an additional article describing these individuals. To achieve a more thorough understanding of the events that led Gilles de la Tourette to his 1885 description of the disorder that now bears his name, we herein present an English-language translation of his 1884 article along with a commentary.
This article traces briefly the origins of medical education in the early years of the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca), which culminated in the founding of Medical School in Singapore in 1905. The first attempt was made in the early 19th century, when boys were recruited from local schools as Medical Apprentices to be trained as "assistant doctors". They were to assist the British doctors and doctors from India in running the medical services. This scheme was not successful. There are 3 landmark years in the evolution of medical education in the Straits Settlements, namely 1852, 1867 and 1904. In 1852, the Governor, to relieve the shortage of staff in the Medical Department, instructed the Principal Civil Medical Officer to organise a proper course of training for Medical Apprentices and to establish a local Medical Service. This scheme was also unsuccessful and the Straits Settlements continued to rely on doctors recruited from India. In 1867, the Straits Settlements were transferred from the India Office to the Colonial Office and became a Crown Colony. The Indian Government requested that all its doctors be sent back. This would have led to the collapse of the Straits Settlements Medical Service. As a stop-gap measure, the Governor offered the Indian doctors appointment in the new Straits Settlements Medical Service, and at the same time arranged with the Madras Government for boys from the Straits Settlements to be trained in its Medical Colleges. The first 2 boys were sent in 1869. In 1889, the Principal Civil Medical Officer proposed to the Governor that a Medical School should be founded in Singapore, but not enough candidates passed the preliminary entrance examination. The plan was shelved and boys continued to be sent to Madras for training. In 1902, the Committee on English Education proposed that a Medical School should be started in Singapore, but senior British doctors opposed this. On 8 September 1904, Mr Tan Jiak Kim and other local community leaders petitioned the Governor to start a Medical School, raised enough funds to establish the School and the Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School (predecessor of the King Edward VII College of Medicine, and the Faculties of Medicine, University of Singapore and University of Malaya) was founded on 3 July 1905.
Falciparum malaria may have infected Homo sapiens (and perhaps H erectus) in the Asia Pacific region for more than 100,000 years. This estimate is based on the gene frequency of alpha-thalassaemia, the protection it affords against falciparum malaria and assumptions of untreated mortality from the infection. Up until the end of the 19th century, there was a high mortality from malaria in the coastal parts of Malaya, but the malaria control campaign, begun in 1901 at Klang, was described by Sir Ronald Ross as the first successful antimalarial work in the (then) British Empire. This was extended to Singapore in 1911. When the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine held its Fifth Biennial Congress in Singapore in 1923, malaria was still a major killing disease in parts of Malaya and Sarawak. The mechanism of life-threatening malaria involves cytoadherence of parasitised erythrocytes in microvascular beds, a process enhanced by the products of macrophage activation induced by malarial pyrogen. Improvements in the chemotherapy of life-threatening falciparum malaria with chloroquine and quinine have been countered by the emergence of resistant strains. Artemisinin derivatives may become the treatment of choice during the coming decade. Apart from traditional anti-mosquito methods, control of malaria now involves the use of insecticide-impregnated bed nets, new entomological strategies, including genetic manipulation of mosquitoes and selective chemoprophylaxis. Antigenic diversity and antigenic variation of the malaria parasite have so far defeated attempts to produce an effective vaccine.
In both African and Asian colonies until the late 19th century, colonial medicine operated pragmatically to meet the medical needs first of colonial officers and troops, immigrant settlers, and laborers responsible for economic development, then of indigenous populations when their ill health threatened the well-being of the expatriate population. Since the turn of the century, however, the consequences of colonial expansion and development for indigenous people's health had become increasingly apparent, and disease control and public health programs were expanded in this light. These programs increased government surveillance of populations at both community and household levels. As a consequence, colonial states extended institutional oversight and induced dependency through public health measures. Drawing on my own work on colonial Malaya, I illustrate developments in public health and their links to the moral logic of colonialism and its complementarity to the political economy.
Charles Wilberforce Daniels was a major pioneer in the early days of the newly-formed medical specialism--tropical medicine. At the London School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) of which he was a leading stalwart, he took an active part in research, teaching and administration. But like others in the new discipline he spent a great deal of time at various tropical locations: Fiji, British Guiana--where he made important observations on various forms of filariasis-- east Africa, and Malaya. However, his most important research contribution was arguably confirmation of Ronald Ross' 1898 discovery of the complete life-cycle of avian malaria, in Calcutta.