Most travel, including the modern international variety, is swift, pretty safe, and very boring. Or, by deliberate intent, it may be rugged and hazardous. In either case, it breaks one's normal habits in eating, drinking, exercise, and the employment of leisure time. In terms of travelers' disease, much of the world is much safer than it was, but dangers still lurk in the path of the unwary. Some of them merely cause discomfort and the loss of time, but a few can still be swiftly and dramatically lethal.

This book tells you how to prepare for your journey, whether you are traveling on the established tourist track or going to a remote area. You will learn how to avoid dying from malaria and other fell conditions; how to avoid insect pests, the aftermath of injudicious dissipation, overexertion, and the opposite.

On the other hand the authors, both of whom have traveled over most of the world, have no wish to terrify the reader. For each danger there is the appropriate remedy or preventive, and, however serious the advice given, it is presented in a lighthearted manner, and interspersed with quotations from authors ranging from William Shakespeare to the prolific "Anon."