In this course we explore health and medicine in Hong Kong from the First Opium War to the present. Adopting a chronological and cross-cutting thematic approach, we consider the evolution of the state and its institutions in relation to a number of health challenges: from malaria and plague in the nineteenth century to novel zoonotic infections, such as SARS and COVID-19, in the twenty-first century; from the health impacts of mass-migration to cancer and super-ageing today. To what extent did Western medicine serve as an instrument of colonial power? Conversely, how did the expansion of health services in the twentieth century contribute to Hong Kong’s social transformation? And finally, how have race, gender, and class influenced health priorities? In addressing these questions, we consider developments in Hong Kong in relation to broader interregional and global phenomena: from war and revolution to financial crisis and climate change.