History of indian medicine

1. Indian Medicine

2. Global Medical Systems

3. Indian
MedicineMedical
‘Systems’/Practices
• Ayurveda
• Unani Tibb
• Siddha
• Astrological medicine
• ‘Western’ medicine
• Daktari
• ‘Subaltern medicine’
• And the rest…

4. Characteristics of Indian Medicine
• synthetic; rooted in or structured by religious texts
• incorporates psychological, moral and ecological phenomena within its
system of assessing and accounting for corporeal phenomena
• health-focused (patient-centred); emphasis on pharmaceutics, dietetics
and moderation
• values subjective, experienced body, environment; privileges patient
history
• progress balanced by regress
• vital power (ojas) is at centre of health and illness; physical body is
permeated by non-material forces
• Makes rhetorical claims upon canonical texts -- texts considered to
contain revealed truths -- as well as upon established medical classics
which are considered to be entirely human productions.
• microcosm/macrocosm based on religious models of society as well as
physical world view; medicine of systematic correspondences
• alchemical body -- purification and conversion of base matter to pure
(spiritual) substances

5. Ayurveda:
Hydraulic body; 3 circulating humors (dosas, linked to the 3
elements, air, fire and water, and the vital essences, agni, prana,
ojas) Seven tissues (dhatu) bind mind and spirit to the body
Practitioners: Vaids
Siddha: Alchemical body, purifying spirit (ojas – loose translation
could be ‘vital energy’) from matter as the life force (prana) flows
through the body;

6. Purifying the
Body
• Hydraulic body
(How?/What?)
• Tantric alchemical
body (Why?)
• Body models,
therapies involve
mixture of Vedic
and Buddhist ideas
about matter and
the relationship
between the body
and the universe.

7. Unani Tibb
The Four Humors
Practitioners: Hakims

8. Unani Tibb: taking the pulse

9. The Arrival of ‘Western’ Medicine:
India under the East India Company 1756-1859

10. • Western medicine was known in
India as ‘allopathy’ or ‘English
medicine’ – in Hindi: ‘Angreji dava’.
• Indians who practised ‘English
medicine’ were known as daktars
and their practice ‘doctory’ (daktari).

13. India, Empire and
Epidemics
Strategies:
• Prevention via
sanitation and
inoculation/vaccination
• Control via quarantine,
draconian interventions
into daily life and
practices
• Education – especially
in relation to hygiene,
but also nutrition, social
habits, ideas of disease.

15. The revival of
Ayurveda and
Unani Tibb

16. A Bengali
Daktar’s
Practice
1874

19. Unqualified ‘daktar’ gives injection

20. Healing shrines

21. Exorcist – the Dangs, Gujarat

22. Ms. S. was mentally affected by witchcraft power - received baptism.

24. Standardisation of indigenous medicines

26. Ayurvedic medical tourism - Kerala

28. A word about the readings…
• David Hardiman: this is a history of how the history of
Ayurveda has been written, as much as an account of the
‘(re)invention’ of Ayurveda itself. There are lots of names and
historiographic arguments in sections I and II, but don’t be
scared off; from section III on, you’ll get a nice history of how
‘modern’ Ayurveda and Unani Tibb emerged from orientalism,
empire, nationalism and ethno-sectarianism.
• Key points: the ‘invention’ or ‘(re)invention’ of medical
traditions and systems; the ‘purification’ and
institutionalisation of ‘syndicated’ Ayurveda/Unani Tibb; the
importance of examining medical PRACTICE as well as theory
and rhetoric.
NB: the notes offer a pretty comprehensive bibliography of the
best writing on Ayurveda/Unani Tibb – so it’s great for those of
you doing papers on Indian medicine or medicine in empire…

29. A word about the readings…
• Projit Mukharji: As well as introducing us to ‘daktari
medicine’ (a complex ‘vernacular’ fusion of ‘western’ and
indigenous medical knowledge, beliefs and practices), this
text challenges the idea that imperialism was the stage for
‘episodic’ confrontational ‘medical encounters’ between rival
discrete and well-bounded medical systems, each searching
for dominance. A closer reading of this process, and medicine
in practice, he argues, paints a different picture of
‘hybridization, negotiation, etc.’
• Key concepts: ‘western’ medicine had both ‘productive’ and
‘repressive’ facets in India; ‘western’ medicine in India (as in
Africa) is, in fact, also ‘Indian’: it has been ‘domesticated’ or
‘provincialised’, and even used as a tool of ‘resistance’ for
some; moreover, a patient centred view illustrates a medical
market and ‘healer hopping’ that challenged the idea that
either ‘Western’ or ‘Indian’ medical practices were ‘systemic’;
at the same time, a medical lens exposes ‘felt communities’.