History of Medicine in India: The Medical Encounter

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The book deals with the medical encounter between eastern and western medicine. So far, Philip Curtin, David Arnold, Ira Klein, Michael Worboys, Ian Catanach, Ralph Nicholas, Paul Greenough and Roy McLeod, Mark Harrison among others have represented the western view on this historic encounter. There was no reply from the Indian scholars on the debate. The current work is the first major attempt to represent the views of the Indian medical historians.
It deals with epidemics, public health, traditional medicine and the received western medicine, women’s health and many other allied questions. The value of this academic engagement cannot be overemphasized. This is destined to become a standard text for History of Medicine for medical students and general readers of the subject.
Dr. Chittabrata Palit, M.A.(Cal), (Cantab), FRAS (London) is a senior professor of history at Jadavpur University
Calcutta. He is an established authority on the subject. He has served as a member of the National Commission for the History of Science (1987-2001), principal investigator of a project on Science and Nationalism for the Indian National Science Academy for the last six years and currently the principal investigator of a UGC major project on Pharmacy in the Ayurvedic Texts in eastern India.
He has numerous books on the history of sciences including medicine to his credit.
Dr. Achintya Dutta, M.A. (B.U.), M.Phil and PhD (J.U.) is a senior Reader in History at the University of Burdwan. His book, Economy and Ecology of the Burdwan District has earned wide acclaim. He has been a Commonwealth Scholar and a Wellcome Trust Visiting Scholar to London, U.K. His current project is on Kala azar on which he has published many papers. This work is forthcoming as a book.

Preface

This volume has grown out of a national seminar hosted by Corpus Research Institute in Jadavpur University Campus, Kolkata in 2002. There are altogether eighteen essays on various aspects of the history of medicine in India. This is a discipline which is universally acclaimed all over the world as vital for the health care of human civilisation. In India, it is yet to become an academic discipline in the universities. Only medical research institutes had such a wing from before. Fortunately, history of science and medicine is now entering the syllabus of postgraduate studies as a priority area of study as prescribed by the University Grants Commission. As it is a life and death question, the general reading public also have a lively interest in the subject. This book will cater to both levels of readership. It is divided into five sections. The first section deals with epidemics, both policy and practice. At least five epidemics are discussed in detail in this section. The second section deals with western medicine, its emergence and intervention in a traditional society. The third section highlights indigenous medicine which was on the crossroads of revival and survival. This is followed by a crucial section on gender and health especially dealing with the advent of gynaecology and approach to delivery deaths. The last section is on social work which focusses attention on social construction of health and social work in this field, much against the western notion of the lack of public initiative in India. This book is destined to be the first major Indian reply to medical orientalism dominating the area.
Chittabrata Palit Achintya Kumar Dutta
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