The successful emergence of Shanghai as a world city by the close of the nineteenth century was built upon the establishment of a modern urban base. No aspect of Shanghai's infrastructural developments was more critically important than the creation of a public health system. A Wilderness of Marshes traces Shanghai's medical infrastructure from its conception to the implementation of a Western-style public health system and a municipal government to manage it. Kerrie MacPherson details the pioneering actions of Shanghai's capitalist, professional, and religious communities who skillfully adapted the ideas and practices gaining currency in Western science, medicine, public morality, and urban circumstances to the Asian metropolis.