This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the range and extent of non-Western responses to Western medicine across the whole spectrum of Western imperialist influence. It ranges from Japan in the east to the Navajo of the North American plains in the west, and is the first to put the issue of the contestation of knowledge at its centre. It shows that the first stage, with respect to medicine, consisted primarily of a 'donor-recipient' relationship being expected by the decolonised states, wanting Western medicine to be established with Western money. The book claims that current discussion of the origin of the most prominent of modern diseases, AIDS, is itself a piece of neo-imperialistic racism. It argues that careful treatment of rumours can yield valuable insights into the nature of the relationship between colonisers and colonised.