Book excerpt: "Modern Medicine in the Holy Land" provides an in-depth assessment of the pioneering work of British Hospitals in Palestine in the nineteenth century, and finds these institutions made great contributions to the modernization of the country. The large numbers of Europeans, spearheaded by British missionaries, who began to visit Palestine and the Levant, brought modern medical practices to the region. The driving factor for this change was the medical enterprise of the London Mission and the series of hospitals it established. This pioneering initiative led to the development of competition among the Great Powers in Palestine and by the end of the nineteenth century there were scores of medical institutions that were representative of the modern age. Using a wide selection of primary sources from both Britain and Israel, Perry and Lev bring together for the first time the history of medical service men who fought to improve the health of the inhabitants of the Holy Land under the most difficult conditions of climate and disease.