SJAAK VAN DER GEEST is Professor Emeritus of Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, visiting professor at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh and dean of the Amsterdam Master’s in Medical Anthropology (AMMA). He has done fieldwork in Ghana and Cameroon on a variety of subjects including sexual relationships and birthcontrol, the use and distribution of medicines, popular song texts, meanings of growing old, and concepts of dirt and defecation.  He is founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Medische Antropologie and assistant editor of several other journals in the field of medical anthroplogy.