PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



In the authors' experience many medical men 

 in the tropics are only deterred from undertaking 

 researches in tropical diseases by the impossibiHty 

 of obtaining the necessary knowledge of methods 

 apart from personal instruction in some laboratory. 

 Numerous works on^ technique exist, they are, 

 ho Never, more adapted for work in a laboratory 

 than for the conditions under which the average 

 practitioner in the tropics must be prepared to 

 conduct his researches. As a result of an ex- 

 perience of several years, during our work on the 

 Royal Society's Commission on Malaria, of the 

 difficulties that Indian and- Colonial medical 

 officers experience in making the first start in what 

 must often be work of the greatest interest to 

 themselves and the utmost value to science, .we 

 have deemed it wise to give instead of full and 

 elaborate technique, as usually given, only that 

 which we have found the best, the simplest, and 

 the most generally useful. In reality, the necessary 

 methods required to undertake research of the 

 highest value in Malaria are very simple, yet most 

 of these cannot be found in books, and they are 

 with considerable difficulty learnt except by the 

 personal direction of those who are familiar with 

 the small details which go to make success. 



In the present handbook we propose to give 

 the essentially practical methods, by which those 

 not familiar with laboratory methods may, under 



