Abstract

This chapter mobilises some of the primary sources (so-called “Grey Literature”) deposited at the Donald Mason Library, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), to showcase the fruitful possibilities of researching the global histories of medicine, health and disease from the late-nineteenth to around the mid-twentieth century. In the next section, we discuss the issue of provenance: how did these primary sources end up in the LSTM? To answer this question, we explore briefly the institutional history of the LSTM and its Donald Mason Library, as well as the general context of the development of “tropical medicine” as a medical specialty in the late-nineteenth century. In tandem, we discuss the historiography of global health and the issues that we need to bear in mind while approaching our primary sources.