ABSTRACT

This book analyzes the diverse facets of the social history of health and medicine in colonial India. It explores a unique set of themes that capture the diversities of India, such as public health, medical institutions, mental illness and the politics and economics of colonialism. Based on inter-disciplinary research, the contributions offer valuable insight into topics that have recently received increased scholarly attention, including the use of opiates and the role of advertising in driving medical markets. The contributors, both established and emerging scholars in the field, incorporate sources ranging from palm leaf manuscripts to archival materials.

This book will be of interest to scholars of history, especially the history of medicine and the history of colonialism and imperialism, sociology, social anthropology, cultural theory, and South Asian Studies, as well as to health workers and NGOs.

chapter 1|14 pages

Social history of health and medicine

Colonial India

chapter 2|16 pages

Ranald Martin's Medical Topography (1837)

The emergence of public health in Calcutta

chapter 3|14 pages

Beyond the bounds of time?

The Haj pilgrimage from the Indian subcontinent, 1865–1920

chapter 4|29 pages

‘Subordinate' negotiations

Indigenous staff, the colonial state and public health

chapter 5|19 pages

Plague, quarantine and empire

British–Indian sanitary strategies in Central Asia, 1897–1907

chapter 6|20 pages

Medical research and control of disease

Kala-azar in British India

chapter 7|16 pages

The leprosy patient and society

Colonial Orissa, 1870s–1940s

chapter 8|22 pages

Institutions, people and power

Lunatic asylums in Bengal, c. 1800–1900

chapter 9|22 pages

‘Prejudices clung to by the natives'

Ethnicity in the Indian army and hospitals for sepoys, c. 1870s–1890s

chapter 10|22 pages

Racial pathologies

Morbid anatomy in British India, 1770–1850

chapter 11|18 pages

Pharmacology, ‘indigenous knowledge', nationalism *

A few words from the epitaph of subaltern science

chapter 12|16 pages

Creating a consumer

Exploring medical advertisements in colonial India *