What did Hospital for Tropical Diseases and London School of Tropical Medicine blue plaque do at 25 Gordon Street?

25 Gordon StreetBlue Plaque

The Story

# 25 Gordon Street: A Hub of Tropical Medicine Standing before 25 Gordon Street, you're at the epicenter of Britain's tropical medicine revolution during the interwar years, when this building housed both the pioneering London School of Tropical Medicine and its affiliated Hospital for Tropical Diseases from 1920 to 1939. Within these walls, medical researchers and practitioners worked in tandem to unlock the mysteries of diseases that ravaged the British Empire's colonies—malaria, sleeping sickness, yellow fever, and countless parasitic infections that claimed thousands of lives across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. It was here that generations of physicians trained in the specialized art of tropical diagnosis and treatment, while simultaneously caring for patients who had returned home carrying exotic afflictions unfamiliar to conventional London doctors. Though the institutions would later relocate, the two decades spent at this Gordon Street address represent a defining moment when London established itself as the global authority on tropical medicine, transforming it from folk knowledge into rigorous science and establishing protocols still recognized today.

Location

25 Gordon Street

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