Numerous economic, sociocultural, and health problems continue to impede the optimal progress of many millions of people in the developing countries in tropical and other geographic regions of the world. Thus, tropical medicine has many aspects including parasitology, bacteriology, and virology, environmental sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, pharmacology, immunology, agriculture, eco nomics, political science, anthropology, sociology, and behavioral sciences. Like the mythical Proteus, the individual dealing with tropical medicine must assume many roles. There is a growing recognition of...

I welcome the privilege of writing some words of introduction to this important book. Its authors have been courageous in bringing together in one text a triad of topics that cover such large tracts of biomedical sciences as epidemiology, biochemistry, immunology, and clinical medicine. Malnutrition and infection are known to be closely linked, the one promoting the other. The adaptive immune system forms a part of the link since it is responsible for a good deal of defense against infection, and it may be affected adversely by malnutrition and indeed by infection itself. Knowledge in this...