Main description:

This volume explores the nature of interactions between the East and the West in the field of medicine. It brings into focus conditions and historical processes through which there was an interaction between the social and medical domains, particularly under the rubric of colonialism. It discusses India's medical tradition and the challenges it faced when modern medical system entered the country; the exchange of knowledge between India and the west; and the
influence of local medicinal knowledge on its colonial counterpart. The exchange of ideas and that of tradition was not a simple journey but rather a long and tortuous trajectory which was characterized by both assimilation as well as initiative which sought to differentiate one set of ideas from another.
The level of interaction was seldom smooth and it was often ridden with the languages of dominance and hegemony. Through specific examples and case studies, the book also analyses various ailments and the changing medical domain from the point of view of the existing social norms/conditions.

Contents:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ; INTRODUCTION ; SECTION I: THE MULTIPLICITY OF DOMAINS ; 1. PROBING HISTORY OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN INDIA: A STUDY OF ENCOUNTERS AT MULTIPLE SITES (DEEPAK KUMAR) ; 2. ANATOMICAL KNOWLEDGE AND EAST-WEST EXCHANGE (JAYANTA BHATTACHARYA) ; 3. FROM BAZAAR MEDICINE TO HOSPITAL MEDICINE: CALOMEL, INDIA AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE, C.1750-C.1800 (MARK HARRISON) ; 4. DIETETICS, MIMESIS, AND ALTERITY: FOOD IN ASIAN MEDICAL TRADITIONS AND EAST-WEST EXCHANGES (DAVID ARNOLD) ; 5. HEALTH AND SOVEREIGNTY IN THE NEW ASIA: THE DECLINE AND RISE OF THE TROPICS (SUNIL AMRITH) ; SECTION II: THE DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS ; 6. CHOLERA, HEROIC THERAPIES, AND RISE OF HOMOEOPATHY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY INDIA (DHRUB KUMAR SINGH) ; 7. KNOWING HEALTH AND MEDICINE: A CASE STUDY OF BENARES, C.1900-1950 (MADHURI SHARMA) ; 8. HEALING THE SICK AND THE DESTITUTE: PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES AND MEDICAL MISSIONS IN NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURY TRAVANCORE (RAJ SEKHAR BASU) ; 9. A MIXED RECORD: MALARIA CONTROL IN BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, 1900-1935 (MRIDULA RAMANNA) ; 10. VULNERABILITY OF WOMEN TO BACILLUS: MYTHS AND REALITY IN INDIA (1890-1950) (BIKRAMADITYA K. CHOUDHARY) ; 11. NEGOTIATING SUBALTERNITY: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TUBERCULOSIS IN COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL INDIA (ARABINDA SAMANTA) ; 12. 'DELIVERING THE "MURDERED CHILD": INFANTICIDE, ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION IN COLONIAL INDIA' (INDIRA CHOWDHURY) ; SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ; NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS