History Of Medicine In South Asia

Original research by Mogg Morgan for the Morgan Witches

When we hear the phrase "spirit possession," most of us think of horror films, superstition, or the remnants of a fearful past. But in many cultures, including India and Egypt, the idea of being "possessed" has also been a way of talking about illness, personality, and even spiritual growth. In this article, I want to explore that older, more complicated world-one in which gods, demons, and spirits were not just imaginary beings, but part of how people understood the mind, the body, and their place in the cosmos.

The Pāli Atanatiya Sutta occupies an ambivalent position in Theravada Buddhism: canonically it is a protective discourse (paritta) endorsed by the Buddha, yet in practice it functions as the most potent ritual technology for exorcising malevolent spirits in Sri Lankan folk Buddhism. This article argues that the sutta cannot be understood without reference to Bhuta Vidyā, the branch of classical Āyurveda dealing with spirit-induced pathologies. Through comparative textual analysis of the Atanatiya Sutta, Caraka Saṃhitā, and Sushruta Samhita, combined with ethnographic fieldwork on contemporary pirith and tovil ceremonies, this study demonstrates that the sutta represents a "Buddhicized" redaction of a pan-Indian demonological medical complex. The sutta performs three interlocking functions: (1) nosologically, by providing an explanatory model for exogenous affliction; (2) apotropaic, by ritually enforcing a cosmic legal order; (3) socio-integrative, by reaffirming Buddhist hegemony over pre-existing spirit cults. The paper concludes that the Atana Tiya Sutta is not a deviation from doctrinal Buddhism but a strategic synthesis that enabled the Sāsana to address the lived medical and existential anxieties of its historical milieu, a function it continues to serve in modern Sri Lanka.

Knowledge of the body was no doubt a concern for the Ayurvedic authors. In Caraka Samhitā (CS) —
śarīravicayah śarīropakārārthamis yate/ jnātvā hi śarīratattvam śarīropakārakaresu bhāvesu jnānamutpadyate / tasmāt śarīravicayam praśamsanti kuśalāh // [Śā, 6.3] (Detailed knowledge of the human body is conducive to the well-being of the individual. Understanding of the factors that constitute the body provides knowledge regarding the factors which are responsible for its well-being. It is because of this that experts extol the knowledge of the details of the body).
Though this passage does not vividly speak of anatomical knowledge, it does point out to the importance of bodily knowledge in Ayurveda. Perhaps the importance of gaining anatomical knowledge cannot be better valued than the editorial of the New England Journal of Medicine. While ‘Looking Back on the Millennium in Medicine’, “The emergence of a comprehensive understanding of the structure and function of the organ systems of the human body stands—without question—as one of the most influential advances of the past millennium . . . Considered together, the work of Vesalius and Harvey provided the intellectual underpinnings for many advances in human anatomy, physiology, clinical medicine, and surgery that followed during the remainder of the millennium.”

The criminalization of cannabis under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) remains one of the most debated issues in contemporary India. While the law imposes severe restrictions on cultivation and possession of cannabis, references to bhang and cannabis-related traditions are deeply embedded in Hindu religious literature, ascetic practices, and Indian cultural history. This article examines the historical role of bhang in Hindu traditions, the constitutional dimensions of religious freedom under Articles 21 and 25 of the Constitution of India, the international pressures surrounding the enactment of the NDPS Act, and contemporary debates regarding cannabis reform. The article also discusses a Right to Information (RTI) initiative submitted to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) seeking clarification regarding the rationale and implementation of cannabis prohibition in India.

The Tandula-veyāliya (Sanskrit: Taṇḍula-vaicārika-Prakīrṇaka-sūtra) is one of the Paiṇṇayas (miscellaneous texts) in the Śvetāmbara Jaina Āgama in Ardhamāgadhī. It is a text about human embryology, physiology and renunciation. This document includes an introduction, the searchable text based on Schubring 1969, and a bibliography. (April 2026)

While discussing travelers’ accounts related to Indian medical knowledge, especially anatomy and surgery, we need to take in to account very briefly the salient features of medicine in India. By the time it was predominantly expressed through Āyurveda. In their own models of explanations, Āyurveda and other systems of healing in India like Unani and Siddha deal with organs inside the body and their activities inside the body which can be termed from modern vocabulary as physiological ones. These, taken together led to the origin and causation of diseases, the development and course of diseases inside the body (termed as prognosis) and treatment
following these processes. Unlike European medicine, Āyurveda represented Indian subjectivity to a great extent. As keenly observed
by Zimmermann, bereft of knowledge of modern and actual anatomy and physiology, ecology formed an integral part of the diagnosis of disease without having any idea of the organ localization of the disease as a result of which, as observed by Zimmermann, a biogeography was absorbed into therapeutics, and a discourse on the world (equivalent to natural history) was contained within a discourse on man (which connotes medicine).
In the accounts of travelers and other persons of various interests from other countries, there are abundant descriptions of medical science, as they observed it during the period they in this country, and such impressions, if properly compiled, may provide “unbiased” testimony to the progress of the scientific crafts at the time. Travelers’ accounts are a good source mainly for two reasons – (1) to underscore the trajectory of Indian medical knowledge or Āyurveda across the ages, and (2) to gain some insight related to the decline and marginalization of surgical practice to the sects of the people belonging to the lower castes. It also becomes a moot question how to reconcile the fact of utter lack of anatomical knowledge with surgical excellence in some branches of surgery like rhinoplasty, lithotomy, couching cataract etc. It should be noted that the post-16th century travellers came at a period when post-Vesalian anatomical knowledge and post-Harverian physiology began to be firmly entrenched in European medical education and universities.

Medicine, Social Psyche and the Making of Modern Citizenry (Primus, 2025)] On the 9th May 1822, the Medical Board of Bengal Province communicated to the Government a memorandum, pointing out the want of native doctors for the supply of the various establishments connected with the civil and military branches of the service, and suggesting the establishment of a school for native doctors, to be maintained at the expense of the Government, as the only means by which the deficiency could be supplied. Governm ent highly approved of the suggestion, and called upon the Medical Board to submit more detailed arrangements of their plan, in the form of a regulation for the proposed institution. Accordingly on the 30th of May, the Board submitted their plan of a school for native doctors, which meeting with the approbation of the Government, a general order was issued on the 21st of June 1822, establishing the school on the proposed plan. It has been shown that from October 3, 1823, the teaching and other academic activities of the School really started.

From today’s medical perspective, there is little mention of case records in India. With the arrival of Western medicine in India in the 18th century, there emerged the practice of keeping case records in hospitals erected by European powers. It did not automatically lead to hospital medicine,
which required physical examination, autopsy, statistics, and museums for preserving the cases. The foundation of the Calcutta Medical College in 1835, built on the model of University College of London, ushered into it. Serial experiments in Calcutta, like producing native dressers in Madras establishments, the founding of the Native Medical Institution (1822) for native doctors, introduction of medical classes at the Sanskrit College and Madrassa etc. preceded it. The 18th-19th-century case records were of European soldiers by European doctors. Almost every surgeon had charge of 700 patients. They would keep a regular diary of cases. In 1826, Tytler had introduced keeping case records in Persian by the NMI students.
The conceptual basis of a clinical case is the ordering of its facts by the agency of time. Its material dimension is the transcription of this evidence in written form, thereafter embodied as a medical record of observed
events. After 1826, the keeping of case records was internalized by Indian students. Till then, they did not perform dissection beyond zootomy. Hence the cases were actually records of symptoms, instead of
signs, which were to be confirmed through pathological anatomy. The transition was made possible through CMC. In CMC, students were to examine patients at the bedside, perform dissection after his/her death
and keep records which were to be produced during examination. At the same time, they had to keep records of both medical and surgical cases, and the reports of experimentation with the Jennerian vaccine and various drugs – both European and indigenous – on patients. Along with CMC, through the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1823) and its journal Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1825) circulation of medical, surgical, and pharmaco-botanical knowledge throughout India and to Europe became practicable. The introduction of anatomical dissection secularized both the notion
of the body and medical education stripped off from caste prejudice and parochial hierarchy. The hospital case records became a materiality through internalization of hospital medicine in its full gamut by Indians
like S G Chuckerbutty.

Anatomical dissection was an all-encompassing passion in the field of medicine during the late 1780s in America. Anatomists were even ascribed the eponym “brethren of the knife.” With the coming of Andre Vesalius and the publication of his book De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books) in 1543, everything related to anatomical understanding was revolutionized. Western anatomy/medicine entered a new era dissection with the knife and delving into the 3rd dimension or depth of the body. The knife was, to speak in a lighter vein, coterminous with the anatomist or the surgeon. But we see an altogether different picture in the practice of so-called “dissection” in the great ancient surgical treatise – the Sushruta-Samhita. In Sushruta-Samhita, there was no dissection per se as in the Western practice. Instead of knife, ancient surgeons or śalyahartar-s used the technique of avagharshana, a special technique to reveal the body by removing skin and muscle layers by layers with the aid of particular kinds of grasses and bamboo.  In this sense, there was no real “anatomist” in ancient Indian medical/surgical practice. Despite this fact, they did some excellent surgeries depending on their knowledge of regional anatomy, which was supplied by accurate description and knowledge of marma (mortal/vital spots). Here comes up the question of two epistemologies of knowing the body and the two knowledge systems – ancient Indian and Western systems, respectively. In the ancient Indian context, it is better to say there was almost no anatomical practice at all. What existed was a modicum of surgical crafts – NOT based on organ localization of the interior of the body.

From today’s medical perspective, there is little mention of case records in India. With the arrival of Western medicine in India in the 18th century, there emerged the practice of keeping case records in hospitals erected by European powers. It did not automatically lead to hospital medicine,
which required physical examination, autopsy, statistics and museums for preserving the cases. The foundation of the Calcutta Medical College in 1835, built on the model of University College of London, ushered into it. Serial experiments in Calcutta like producing native dressers in Madras establishments, the founding of the Native Medical Institution (1822) for native doctors, introduction of medical classes at the Sanskrit College and Madrassa etc. preceded it. The 18th-19th century case records were of European soldiers by European doctors. Almost every surgeon had charge of 700 patients. They would keep a regular diary of cases. In 1826, Tytler had introduced keeping case records in Persian by the NMI (Native Medical Institution, 1822) students.
The conceptual basis of clinical case is the ordering of its facts by the agency of time. Its material dimension is the transcription of this evidence in written form, thereafter embodied as a medical record of observed
events. After 1826, the keeping of case records was internalized by Indian students. Till then they did not perform dissection beyond zootomy. Hence the cases were actually records of symptoms, instead of signs which were to be confirmed through pathological anatomy. The transition was made possible through CMC. In CMC, students were to examine patients at the bedside, perform dissection after his/her death and keep records which were to be produced during examination. At the same time, they had to keep records of both medical and surgical cases, and the reports of experimentation the Jennerian vaccine and various drugs – both European and indigenous – on patients. Along with CMC, through the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1823) and its journal Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1825) circulation of medical, surgical, and pharmaco-botanical knowledge throughout India and to Europe became practicable. The introduction of anatomical dissection secularized both the notion of the body and medical education stripped off from caste prejudice and parochial hierarchy. The hospital case records became a materiality through internalization of hospital medicine in its full gamut by Indians like S G Chuckerbutty.

Today, various Buddhist traditions in East and Southeast Asia are renowned for also conveying specific medical practices, from Tibetan Buddhist medicine to Japan's Buddhist healers, and from the medico-Buddhist traditions of Thailand to those of China. The Buddhist world has always been intertwined with medicine; however, if we aim to trace the origins of this idea and the reasons for this association, for instance in the Pāli Canon, we find a remarkably clear and profound perspective on the roles of the Buddhist ascetic and the physician as two distinct figures addressing a common problem. Consequently, their methodological and theoretical engagements can be considered to intersect in a fascinating manner. This contribution specifically aims to analyse these differences and intersections, laying the groundwork for an archaeology of Buddhist medical thought beginning with the Pāli Canon.

This chapter discusses concepts and ideologies that form the philosophy of Ayurveda in caring for the longevity of human beings and, thus, for curing illnesses. The chapter's sources are the classics of Ayurveda, which have maintained their canonical function over two millennia. The chapter considers the background of the physical etiologies of Ayurveda, how it operated out of an ethos that was not only Brahmanical but also Buddhist, and how it distinguished itself from the ritualreligious context in which it existed, but without rejecting it. Furthermore, the chapter examines the epistemic focus that characterizes important aspects of Ayurveda, including its sense for the debatability of diagnosis and therapies; the ayurvedic educational course and professional profile, which the ayurvedic classics describe with a high degree of self-consciousness; and the value of communication and a different set of skills in the framework of the relationship between doctor and patient.

A common culture of medicine became the hallmark of European empires throughout the world since the beginning of the 19th century. The first Asian/Indian modern medical institution CMC, as we all probably know, was on 28 January, 1835, though classes did not actually start before June 1835. It heralded the new era of ―hospital medicine‖ in India from its inception. This era which can be briefly summarised as autopsy, bedside teaching and statistics gathered from the morbid anatomy of deceased patients. The genesis of the College was preceded by a ―period of nativity‖/―gestation phase‖ principally through the functioning of the Native Medical Institution (NMI – 1822-1835) – the first English medical school of India. At the beginning, the teachers were confronted with the task of combating a strong national prejudice against the study of anatomy or dissection. Following rigorous remodelling in syllabi and mode of teaching, CMC was the first college not only in India but beyond Euro-American borders as well to have been recognized by the University College, London, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.CMC gained the momentum to reach the ‗escape velocity‘ to be in a position to send their most illustrious students to England for higher European medical education.

A common culture of medicine became the hallmark of European empires throughout the world since the beginning of the 19th century. The first Asian/Indian modern medical institution CMC, as we all probably know, was on 28 January, 1835, though classes did not actually start before June 1835. It heralded the new era of ―hospital medicine‖ in India from its inception. This era which can be briefly summarised as autopsy, bedside teaching and statistics gathered from the morbid anatomy of deceased patients. The genesis of the College was preceded by a ―period of nativity‖/―gestation phase‖ principally through the functioning of the Native Medical Institution (NMI – 1822-1835) – the first English medical school of India. At the beginning, the teachers were confronted with the task of combating a strong national prejudice against the study of anatomy or dissection. Following rigorous remodelling in syllabi and mode of teaching, CMC was the first college not only in India but beyond Euro-American borders as well to have been recognized by the University College, London, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.CMC gained the momentum to reach the ‗escape velocity‘ to be in a position to send their most illustrious students to England for higher European medical education.

In Indian context, with the advent of European medicine, the harnessing of the new medical knowledge to general well being and public service became evident since the foundation of first medical school in British India, Native Medical Institution (NMI, 1822). What was a medical benevolence of the highly visible earlier sovereign feudal power in India became the new disciplinary power of colonial modernity. It signified a perceptive change in the interplays of state power and their attendant effects on institutions, including medical ones.
But, to note, the impact of this worldview was limited mostly to the upper echelon of society. Indigenous practitioners were not much affected by this change for a long time (at least till the last quarter of the nineteenth century).
It was political economy of education – investment for the gener¬ation of desire for European medicine and, consequently, European political hegemony, which led to furtherance of more convincing ap¬proval of the British regime as well as the gradual adoption of Euro¬pean medicine and hegemony socially as a token of benevolence. What may be the most intrigu¬ing part of this discussion is the fundamental ontological and epis¬temological transformations carefully wrought into the matrix of Āyurveda, following its encounter or vigorous exchanges with West¬ern medicine. While in the field of materia medica or mineral or botanical knowledge there was some acceptance of Indian medical knowledge till the early 19th century, after the institutionalization of hospital medicine through the CMC it was completely asymmetri¬cally overdetermined. Āyurveda was now at the receiving end only. Thus the reconstruction of neo-Āyurveda was a definite entity in the consolidation of modern Indian state. In recent years neo-Āyurveda has again reinvigorated through AYUSH (Āyurve¬da, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy). It appears to be a new pol¬itics of health in India.
State, medicine – both modern and traditional – and public health are mutually constitutive since 1835 in India. The “biomedicalization” of Ayurveda is, however, not only a phenomenon that occurs within government institutions but also reaches into private practice.

Jayanta Bhattacharya's book on the Calcutta Medical College is a narrative of the transition of gurukula learning paramparā to the institutionalization of 'modern' healing and medical practice. The author of this monograph provides a thoroughly researched history of the evolution of the Calcutta Medical College (hereafter CMC), from its antecedent, the Native Medical Institution (NMI), founded in 1822. CMC underwent several phases, marked by dissection controversies, and professionalization emerged in the form of "hospital medicine" in 1897. This research also connects medical history, colonial episteme, and socio-political transformation in Bengal in the nineteenth century. Contributing to the broader canvas of the history of science and medicine, this work is not merely about a medical school, but also as an instrument of colonial governance for disciplining the bodies and the social psyche, tied to the colonial creation of "modern" citizens in nineteenth-century Bengal. Deepak Kumar, in the foreword of this book, observes that CMC was undoubtedly the first medical college in South Asia that transcended traditional institutional history. It presents nuanced and complex interconnections between socioeconomic, political, cultural, and medical aspects inside and outside the institution in 19th-century colonial Bengal. Extensive exploration of archival sources to reconstruct institutional history is one of the major strengths of this work.

In Ayurveda, the mainstream medical system of pre-modern South Asia, the phenomenon of collective suffering requires a special explanation, since it is not in accordance with the general understanding of disease causation. The basic theory holds that people are prone to specific diseases according to their constitution, diet, physical strength, habituation, character and age. An event with many deaths or illness cases that show similar symptoms despite differing constitutions, diets etc., is hard to comprehend without a theory of contagion. The chapter on epidemics in the Carakasaṃhitā, one of the foundational ayurvedic compilations (put together around 150 CE) attempts to solve this enigma. It initially enumerates and exemplifies certain general factors, natural phenomena that affect all people of a region regardless of their personal constitution. If wind, water, place or time are in disarray, the changes affect everyone who is under the influence of these phenomena. Thus such environmental corruptions can cause epidemics or similar events despite the dissimilarity of people. The chapter is presented as a dialogue between a teacher (Punarvasu Ātreya), who starts the conversation with the prediction of an epidemic, and his curious pupil, who is not fully satisfied with the initial, environmental explanation summarized above. After the enumeration of various possible countermeasures, he therefore inquires about the underlying causes of such environmental changes. In his reply Ātreya, provides an alternative or complementary ethical explanation for the occurrence of widespread suffering and death. Here, collective unrighteousness (adharma) is given as the central cause for epidemics and similar events: Unrighteous leaders, by their evil acts, corrupt their subjects, intensify and spread the unrighteousness and thus drive away the gods. As the presence of these gods, especially Indra, the god of rain, is understood to guarantee an undisturbed and beneficial natural environment, their absence inevitably brings disaster. While the contagiousness of diseases (in a modern sense) is clearly not understood in this period, the concept of collective (a)dharma, being at the heart of this causation theory, contains several elements that are also part of the concept of contagion.
In the proposed paper I will sketch the different explanatory models for the occurrence of widespread suffering as presented in the Carakasaṃhitā and examine if they conflict with or complement each other. It will become clear that this dual – environmental and ethical – approach is paradigmatic for the situation of pre-modern South Asian medicine, which is often torn between socio-religious convictions and scientific ambitions. Contact, rather than contagion plays an important role in both explanatory layers. Thus, the paper will also show how disease was not understood as transmitted from person to person. Instead, its root cause, adharmic behaviour, was seen as potentially contagious and its spread as eventually corrupting the environment. As a result, all those who are in direct contact with this corrupt environment are collectively afflicted by the same disease.

The first cholera morbus (to differentiate it from common or English cholera) patient William Sproat was detected in Sunderland on 20 October 1831. It spread like a hellfire and cuased deaths of thousands of people without any treatment. It was the year when a young Edinburgh M.D. of just 22 years of age arrived in London and immediately became intersed to find the cause of this fatal disease. He was William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (1809-1889). History provides us with three names of this illustrious youth-William Sands, William Brooke O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaugnesy Brooke since 1861. To mention, in the 1830s about 60% of doctors of East India Company were Edinburgh graduates. (Source: Reproduced from Medical Reporter, Calcutta, 5, 204, 1895) When O'Shaughnessy was born in the year 1809, two more history-changing personalities were also born in the same year-Charles Darwin in UK and Abrham Lincoln in US. It sifnifies that it was the period when new thoughts were coming up. It is interesting to note, O'Shaughnessy's career reflected the diversity of training that he received while studying medicine at Edinburgh University. The Scottish Enlightenment and the influence of Common Sense philosophy in Scottish educational institutions saw the syllabi, including the science curriculum, adopt a holistic approach: all aspects of philosophical debate were combined with a detailed knowledge of the body, and of physics and chemistry. He was equally interested in theoretical and experimental chemistry, physics, medical toxicology, in the discovery of newer drugs, first international medical use of cannabis, discovery of 'narcotine' - an opium derivative-to replace Peruvian bark or quinine which was costly for the use of poor Indian people, experiments with mineriology and so on and, also, telegraph too. Moreover, on behalf of the Central Board of Health, London, he published a book on on chemical pathology of malignant malaria.
He was the first ardent scientist-teacher of the Calcutta Medical College from 1836 to early 1840s. But this genius has gone into oblivion. My paper is a humble attempt to resurrect him from oblivion and pay my tribute.

The objectives of financial autonomy aimed to reduce government commitments in the financing of public hospitals, to increase efficiency in hospital operations, contain costs, and raise the quality of care. The present survey study of Allied Hospital Faisalabad explores that bureaucratic manacles in financial autonomy of these public hospitals end up in creating low job satisfaction levels among the employees of the hospitals. The dissatisfaction among Doctors, Nurses, Paramedical Staff, and Surgeons towards the management of the hospital was observed. , and irregular flows causes low levels of satisfaction in patients towards doctors, nurses and paramedical Staff.

This study tries to understand the history of the traditional healing practices of the Parambarya Vaidyas of Kerala, who are members of families who have been practicing medicine as their vocation for generations and have learned the methods of their profession in the traditional ways. For many of them, it was either a family profession or a caste duty. Along with their history, this study examines the ethical principles that are integrated into the practice of these physicians. Hence the enquiry is partly historical and partly philosophical and ethical and these two are the primary objectives of this study. While analyzing the latter, the study tries to draw upon the insights presented in the works of Caraka, Suśruta and Vāgbhaa and in their light examines how their practices tackle some of the relevant ethical problems related to the science of medicine in general like abortion, euthanasia, quality of life etc. Such aspects will be historically interesting considering the multi r...

This dissertation explores the historical experiences of public health in the princely state of Travancore, focusing on the spread and management of smallpox after the Second World War. The research critically examines how the war indirectly contributed to the resurgence and transmission of smallpox in the region. Central to this study is the interplay between colonial public health interventions and indigenous religious beliefs. While Edward Jenner's pioneering work in England led to the development of the smallpox vaccine using cowpox, its acceptance and implementation in princely states like Travancore faced sociocultural resistance. In Travancore, the local population often turned to religious beliefs and deities for healing, rather than embracing Western medicine. The emergence of smallpox-related deities reflects the deep-rooted spiritual responses to the epidemic. By using smallpox as a case study, this research highlights the broader tension between scientific medical practices and traditional religious responses in colonial India. The relevance of this historical analysis extends to the contemporary context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where modern societies, despite medical advancements, continue to witness a reliance on religious and traditional practices alongside scientific responses. This study thus bridges past and present, offering insights into the socio-cultural dimensions of disease, faith, and public health.

The British colonial medical policy of vaccination for smallpox in India served basically as a means of negotiating power between the colonialists & the colonized and also as a interface between the multiple ethno-religious communities in the nineteenth century Bengal. The paper seeks to analyse and locate multiple sites of events, happenings and practices how smallpox in colonial Bengal was intervened by indigenous use of inoculation by the t . īka dars and how the disease was interpreted, understood and constructed in the context of people’s collective imagination and cultural tradition.

To focus so specifically on one area of the body comes with a risk of repetition and scarcity of material. Fortunately, Thumiger wisely chose to center Comparative Guts on a nebulous part of the human body that contains different parts and metaphors depending on whom one asks. It is a remarkable volume that is both scholarly rigorous and beautiful. I hope the curator of this and future projects like it consider a print-on-demand offering for those who wish to display or thumb through such visually interesting material.

The role of diseases in shaping history underscores the profound impact of the environment on human societies. This notion, that environmental conditions are a root cause of various illnesses, has its roots in ancient Greece, where Hippocrates, the father of medicine, first recognized this fundamental connection.India's diverse climatic zones give rise to a variety of health issues, reflecting the connection between regions and human races throughout history. Environmental problems such as polluted air, water, and heat contribute to the prevalence of diseases, bacteria, germs, and infectious issues that continue to pose challenges. A comprehensive review of the history of science and medicine reveals that multiple factors have contributed to the evolution of the field. The categorization of medicines and remedies spans from traditional knowledge to advanced scientific approaches, reflecting the ongoing human research and curiosity in addressing diseases. Throughout history, societies have adhered to cultural and scientific beliefs to promote health and prevent diseases, with a rich historical tradition in this regard. The observations of European travelers who visited India during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provide valuable insights into the medical practices of that time. This paper, based on medieval history sources, aims to explore the various theories adopted by different medical practitioners in medieval Indian society, with a particular focus on theories such as Ayurveda, Unani, and the fusion of these traditional systems with the advent of Western medicine.

Уайт Д. Г. Алхимическое тело: традиция сиддхов в средневековой Индии / Пер. с англ. В. В. Каткова. — СПб.: Издательство «АИК», 2024 —744 с. — (Серия «Eastern Esotericism»). ISBN 978-5-94396-283-7

ТОЛЬКО ОЗНАКОМИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ФРАГМЕНТ, электронная версия не распространяется.
Начиная с V века нашей эры, различные индийские мистики начали изобретать целый ряд техник, с помощью которых можно было сделать себя бессмертными. Эти люди называли себя сиддхами — термин, ранее использовавшийся для класса полубогов небожителей, почитаемых как индуистами, так и буддистами. В течение следующих веков возникли три типа индуистских сиддхов, каждый из которых имел свою собственную специализированную практику: эротическую, минеральную, йогическую. Для средневековых сиддхов Индии эти три типа практики непосредственно вели к телесному бессмертию, сверхъестественным способностям и самообожествлению; к статусу полубожественных сиддхов старых культов. В «Алхимическом теле» Дэвид Гордон Уайт рассматривает в более широком индийском контексте эту утраченную традицию средневековых сиддхов. Работая основана на ранее неисследованных алхимических источниках. Автор впервые демонстрирует, что средневековые дисциплины индуистской алхимии и хатха-йоги практиковались одними и теми же людьми и что их можно понять только при совместном рассмотрении. Сексуальные жидкости человека и структуры тонкого тела являются микрокосмическими эквивалентами веществ и приспособлений, которыми манипулирует алхимик в своей лаборатории. Благодаря этому Уайт открывает путь к новому и более полному пониманию всего спектра средневекового индийского мистицизма в более широком контексте южноазиатского индуизма, буддизма, джайнизма и ислама. Эта книга является важным справочником для всех, кто интересуется индийской йогой, алхимией и зарождением средневековой науки.

Mapping the History of Ayurveda: Culture, Hegemony and the
Rhetoric of Diversity authored by Girija KP is a milestone in the
new critical scholarship on the history of medicine in India.
The book foregrounds the heterogeneous planes of
knowledge interaction between Ayurveda and other
knowledge systems and traces the evolution of Ayurveda as a
classical tradition along with the parallel growth of
nattuvaidyam, its indigenous counterpart. Nattuvaidyam (as
known in Malayalam) is a set of indigenous healing practices
clubbed together as a miscellaneous category.

The Ma‘dan al-šifā’-i Sikandar-šāhī is an extensive Persian handbook of Ayurvedic medicine made for Miyān Bhuwa ibn Ḫawāṣṣ Ḫān, a vizir of Sultan Sikandar Lōdī (r. 1489-1517) to whom the book was dedicated. This treatise was thought to provide Indian Muslim physicians, unfamiliar with Sanskrit, with a comprehensive manual of Ayurvedic medicine and therapy. Miyān Bhuwa allocated considerable resources to achieving this translation project and hired scholars to translate the many parts of Ayurvedic books used to compile the Persian text. This article explores the reasons behind the production of the Ma‘dan al-šifā’ and proposes a new reading of this book. It argues that Miyān Bhuwa’s project was part of a broader process of incorporation of Ayurvedic materials within Persian texts which had already started about two centuries earlier and which allowed Muslim physicians to master new forms of interpretation, classification and treatment of diseases when compared with earlier Arabic and Persian medical books. It looks at the epistemic and the practical issues raised in the preface of the Ma‘dan al-šifā’, which directly questions the adequacy of how Greco-Arabic thought understood body temperament in the Indian environment. It inquires into the authorship of this Persian Ayurvedic handbook and suggests that probably Miyān Bhuwa only assembled the translations made from Sanskrit texts. The last part of the article looks at the conceptual structure of the Ma‘dan al-šifā’ and how the Sanskrit sources and their models shaped the organization of the sections of the Persian book. Moreover, it suggests that the overall framework of the book relied on the overlap of models of presentation of medical knowledge, a device meant to negotiate between the models of the Sanskrit sources and those of the Muslim readers.

The ?.W Jh/v. 1959 Dear Shri Pandeya, Thank you for your letter of July 13. 1 am glad to know that you are having your Annual Number published on the ISth August. Your previous numbers have been of great value in spreading right knowledge about Ayurveda and I hope you will encourage research activities in that subject.

This article conceptualizes the entanglements between home remedies, vernacular medical knowledge, and gender in Hindu middle-class urban households of early twentieth-century North India through the genre of printed healing recipes in Hindi and the space of the kitchen. It focuses particularly on the vibrant and eclectic "home recipes" written by Yashoda Devi, the leading woman Ayurvedic practitioner of the period. In the process, the paper attempts to theorize recipes as a distinct genre, often authored by women, and an arena where literate women's voices came to be heard, recorded, and published in colonial India. Putting a spotlight on women kitchen pharmacists, the article shows how they were repositors, consumers, domestic doctors, writers, and transmitters of local, home-based health practices and quotidian preventive medicine. While often upholding idealizations of the "good" housewife, these printed recipes also conjoined gender identities and positive kitchen experiences, resting on authority and sharing between women in the field of everyday medicine. Finally, the article shows how these popular Ayurvedic recipes were often projected as upholders of noninvasive, low-cost medicine beyond the regimentations of the colonial state.

Medical anthropologists have not paid enough attention to the variation at the level of the individual practitioners of biomedicine, and anthropological critiques of biomedical psychiatry as it is practiced in settings outside the Global North have tended to depict psychiatrists in monolithic terms. In this article, we attempt to demonstrate that, at least in the case of India, some psychiatrists perceive limitations in the biomedical model and the cultural assumptions behind biomedical practices and ideologies. This paper focuses on three practitioners who supplement their own practices with local and alternative healing modalities derived from South Asian psychologies, philosophies, systems of medicine and religious and ritual practices. The diverging psychiatric practices in this paper represent a rough continuum. They range from a bold and confident psychiatrist who uses various techniques including ritual healing to another who yearns to incorporate more Indian philosophy and psychology in psychiatric practice and encourages students of ayurvedic medicine to more fully embrace the science they are learning to a less proactive psychiatrist who does not describe a desire to change his practice but who is respectful and accepting of ayurvedic treatments that some patients also undergo. Rather than simply applying a hegemonic biomedical psychiatry, these psychiatrists offer the possibility of a more locally-attuned, context sensitive psychiatric practice.

The intricate relationship between Theravada Buddhism and traditional healing practices is vividly illuminated through the lens of the Bhesajjamañjusā (Bhes), a Pāli manuscript known as the "Casket of Medicine." This ancient text stands as a testament to the harmonious interplay of spirituality, holistic medicine, and compassionate care within the Theravada tradition. This article unravels the intricate tapestry of the Bhes by exploring its historical context, authorship, and intended audience. The study delves into the medical content of the Bhes, encompassing disease diagnosis, medicinal characteristics, and the rules of health articulated in this unique work. Additionally, the study investigates the traditional role of the Buddhist monastic community in medicine, emphasising the evolution of Vinaya regulations over time. This paper aims to substantiate the profound role of traditional healing practices within ancient Buddhist monastic traditions, highlighting the significance of Bhes. This exploration seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the significance of Bhes, contributing to a nuanced perspective on the intersection of Buddhism and medicine within the context of the Buddhist monastic community. The Bhes underscores the holistic approach to health advocated by the Buddhist teachings. While the Theravadin position on medicine places restrictions on monks treating the general public, the Bhes allows for internal use, highlighting the compassionate ethos of Theravada Buddhism by emphasising care and support for fellow monks in their pursuit of physical and spiritual wellbeing. The journey from its historical roots to its current status highlights the evolving dynamics in healthcare practices, with the Bhes standing as a timeless symbol of the enduring connection between ancient wisdom and the pursuit of wellbeing.

In order to explore the ways knowledge travels across spatial and cultural boundaries, this article focuses on the intriguing case of the Edinburgh-trained Scottish surgeon, James Esdaile (1808-1859) who, after practising conventional surgery for almost 15 years in British colonial India, quite unexpectedly turned to mesmeric anaesthesia in the last five years of his service. By following his career and his mesmeric turn, the article describes Esdaile’s subsequent public experiments in mesmeric anaesthesia in collaboration with indigenous practices and practitioners of trance-induction in the 1840s which led to the creation of a special mesmeric hospital in Calcutta. Although very successful, it eventually ceased to function, apparently victim to new and cheaper chemical anaesthetics. Mobilising science studies scholarship insights into the processes of scientific experimentation, this article seeks to shed new light on the necessary professional, social and political investments for the making and mobility of scientific knowledge across social and cultural boundaries in a colonial setting.

This paper aims at giving an overview of hospitals in India from ancient to modern times. It deals with European hospitals in India prior to the 19 th century, the rise of hospital medicine and the foundation of the Calcutta Medical College (CMC), and, finally, briefly discusses about the colonial encounter between modern medicine vis-à-vis Āyurveda, and some of its consequences at the level of epistemology. In our era of bio-medicalization, the hospital and the experience of the patient assume a figure completely different from that of pre-hospital medicine era. From the description of hospital in Caraka Sahitā to the provision of medical facilities made in the Brahminical religious institutions of Northern India during the early medieval period, hospitals primarily served for caring and lodging of the sick. A clear distinction between a physician and a surgeon was apparent in a 12 th-century epigraphic record. The decline of surgical knowledge and practice in the scholarly tradition of Indian medical practice was evident. The development of hospitals is among the contributions that Muslim culture brought to Indian society, where hospitals were not extremely common. In the early 19 th century, the brief phase of the Native Medical Institution and medical classes at the Calcutta Sanskrit College nurtured the gestation of hospital medicine. The new secular medicine started at death, when the bedside-practitioner gave up and the scientist-practitioner took over, and these were the same person. Aspiring to talk in the language of modernity, in mimicry of English medical college and hospitals, Āyurvedic institutions began to emerge since the late nineteenth century. Āyurveda was reconstituted in terms of modern medicine. Historically, CMC played its role in the entire process, ushered in the era of hospital medicine,and became instrumental in the marginalization of traditional Indian medicines.

In a revealing paragraph Elizabeth Grosz comments, “Every body is marked by the history and specificity of its existence. It is possible to construct a biography, a history of the body, for each individual and social body.” In doing so, she notes, “The history would include not only all the contingencies that befall a body, impinging on it from the outside,” but any such history “would also have to include the ‘raw ingredients’ out of which the body is produced.” My effort would be to delve into some of the unfamiliar nuances of the context-specific ‘Indian body’ at the epistemological level encountering dislocating colonial epistemological incursions moored in particular socio-economic roots.