Here is a history of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine-from its beginnings as Manson's Tropical School in the late 1890s through its development in the 1920s into an international school of public health and its present position as a center of education and research in the biomedical sciences in the context of world health. Within the tropical disciplines, many of the early pioneers, who spent long periods in the tropics before the introduction of vaccines and other effective control measures, have survived well into their eighties and nineties and have generously supplied personal reminisces and unique information concerning past events.