Is there a need for “Critical Reviews in Tropical Medicine”? I approached reading volume 1 of this series, edited by R. K. Chandra, with great enthusiasm. The field of tropical medicine has witnessed several major changes over the past 2 decades or so. Smallpox has been eradicated, new vaccines for measles, viral hepatitis and malaria are in use or on the horizon for the near future. New drugs and new epidemiologic tools have made the goal of containment of some of the major infections feasible, while resistance to other chemotherapeutic agents is now more threatening than ever before. The challenge is growing and our resources may be lagging behind, particularly as the inertia of the field resists the move with the great scientific tide of the molecular era.

My first surprise was in the “Preface” to this volume where tropical medicine was defined to include parasitology, bacteriology and virology, environmental sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, pharmacology, immunology, agriculture, economics, political science, anthropology, sociology and behavioral sciences.