Bala, P.

English

The thesis examines medical education and medical policies in
British Bengal over the period 1800 to 1947. The material for this
was gathered from the Libraries and Archives in Edinburgh, London,
Calcutta and Delhi.

The thesis starts with an outline of indigenous medicine in
ancient and medieval India. It examines the nature of relationship
between ruling authorities and the growth of the Ayurvedic and Unani
systems of medicine. Although medicine in India was, by the time
of British rule, represented as a set of static rituals and
practices, the history of medicine was, in reality, a history of
accommodation and change, frequently associated with invasion or
changes in rulers.

The remainder of the thesis examines the impact of British rule
and British medicine as the last of a series of major challenges
facing Indian medicine. The period is one in which western
medicine, in particular, medicine in Britain, was changing and
" professionalising. Thus, much of the thesis concerns attempts to
professionalise medicine in India where competition and
accommodation between the different forms of medicine were a primary
consideration.

Initially, it seemed possible that the two systems of medicine
could live in peaceful co-existence and mutual accommodation, but
gradually, with professional pressure from Britain and State
sanctioning in India, western medicine moved to a dominant
position in State provision of medical services. By the end of the
nineteenth century, advances in western medicine undermined the
similarities of theory and practice which, earlier, made extensive
co-operation seem at least a possibility.

Western medicine, in common with other professions in India,
required facilities and education in English. These were
concentrated in Bengal in an elite section of the community,
commonly kown as the Bhadralok. Ironically, but perhaps not
surprisingly, this section of the community not only experienced the
greatest advantage in their relationship with the British State in
India, but, as the best-educated and articulate section of the
community, was most active in the growing nationalist movement from
the end of the nineteenth century. They dominated medical education
but were receptive to the idea of the regeneration and promotion of
indigenous forms of medicine. In these circumstances, western
medicine never achieved a total dominance and by the end of the
period, medical education in Bengal contained aspects of both
systems.

Social and religious conditions in India were vastly different
from those in Britain and, to a large extent, the failure of western
medicine to achieve the sort of professional dominance common in
Britain, is hardly surprising. State policies were formed to serve
commercial and administrative purposes but these did not always
coincide with the interests of either the indigenous population or
of medical practitioners. Thus, as with earlier periods, medicine in
the period under study has to be understood in terms of competition
and accommodation

Bala, Poonam

Edinburgh Research Archive

State and indigenous medicine in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal: 1800-1947

A Bibliographic Essay on Bengal Studies

A History of

A History of Asiatic Cholera,

A History of India,

A History of Indian Philosophy, 1952, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Vo I. their medical and economic

A History of Medicine from pre-Mauryan to Kusana Period,

A History of Medicine,

A History of Public Health: 1834-1939,1950, London, Tindall an ox.

A Native in The Making,

A Social History of Medicine,

A Survey of Source Materials&quot;

Al l ahabad: A Sanitary History&quot;

Allopathic Medicine in India: A Case of Deprofessionalisation? &quot;,

Ancient Indian Culture and Civilization,

Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study,

Bengal and Britain: Culture Contact and the Reinterpretation of Hinduism in the Nineteenth Century&quot;

British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance,

British Rule and the Indian

Cholera in Colonial India&quot;

College in the Presidency of

Early Years of the Calcutta Medical College - Based on Educational Records&quot;,

Edn., &quot;Western Medical Education during the Early Days of British Occupation&quot;,

Education of Unani Medicine during Mughai Period&quot;,

Elite Conflict in a Plural x or niversity Press.

Extract from the Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction,

Fawaid Al-Insan: A Rare Manuscript of Akbar's time&quot;,

From Papyri to Pharmacopoeia&quot;

Head and Hand in Ancient Greece,

History of Indian Education,

History of Indian Medicine&quot;,

History of Medical Education in India&quot;.

History of Pharmacy in Britain,

History of the Press in India&quot;, Cal . Rev .,

Imperialism and the Professions&quot;,

Indian Medicine and the State&quot;,

Indigenous Drugs of India: Their Cultivation and Manufacture,

Indigenous Medicine in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Bengal&quot;,

Indigenous Systems of Medicine during British Supremacy in India&quot;,

Industrial Evolution in India in Recent Times, 1860-1939,1971 Delhi , Oxfor ni versi ty Press. TBook Review by me an Wo terra e,

Infectious Disease&quot;

Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernisation,

Land and Caste in South India,

Manc an a.

Medical Education in India since Ancient Times,

Medical Heritage of India&quot;,

Medical Priorities and Practice in Nineteenth-Century British India&quot;,

Medical Science in Pali Literature,

Medicine and Medical Education&quot;, Cal Rev..

Medicine and Modernization in China&quot;,

Medicine in Medieval India&quot;,

Medicine in the Punjab, 1849-1911: Ethnicity and Professionalisation in Control of an Occupation,

Medicine throughout Antiquity,

Modern India's Ancient Medicine&quot;,

Nationalist Muslims in British India: The Case of Hakim Ajmal Khan&quot;,

New Calcutta Directory for 1857,1857,

On the Rise and Progress of Rational Medical Education in Bengal&quot;,

Pharmacy in History,

Place of the Indigenous and Western Systems of Medicine in the Health Service of India&quot;,

Public Health and Medical Research

Recognizing India' s Doctors: The Institutionalization of Medical Dependency

Religious Life and Organization&quot;,

Report of the Committee of Public Instruction for the year 1839-40, Bengal .

Report of the Drugs Inquiry Committee, 1930-31,

Report on Medical Education at the Vernacular Medical School , Sealdah, by the Committee appointed to enquire into the Medical Expenditure in Bengal,

Report on the Administration of Bengal,

Report on the Indian Newspapers and Periodials

Report on the Investigation of Indigenous Drugs,

Reports of the Government Charitable Dis pt.,

Rival Traditions: Western Medicine and Yunani-Tibb in the Punjab, 1849-1899&quot;,

Selections from Educational Records,

Society at the Time of Buddha,

Society in Ancient India,

Society: Twentieth Century Caraka Samhita,

Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India,

The Achievements of the Indian Physicians&quot;,

The Ayurvedic System of Medicine - Its Fate in Medieval India&quot;,

The Ayurvedic System of Medicine in Medieval India&quot;,

The British Impact on India,

The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine,

The Development of Modern Medicine,

The Drug Makers,

The Early Days of the First Medical 1961,4,

The Economic Accession of Queen Twentieth Century, History of India in the Victorian Age from the ictoria in 1817 to the Commencement of the btn impression.

The Education of India,

The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History&quot;,

The Goddess Si tal a and Epidemic Smallpox in Bengal&quot;,

The Growth of Education and

The Indian Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times,

The Institutional Imperatives of Science&quot;, in B. Barnes (cd.

The Making of a Colonial Mind: A Quantitative Study of the Bhadralokk in Ca cutta: 1857-1885,1983,

The Materia Medica of the Hindus,

The Men Who Ruled India,

The Middle Classes in the Mughal Empire&quot;,

The Mystery and Art of the Apothecary,

The Politics of Ayurvedic Education: A Case Study of Revivalism and Modernization in India&quot;,

State and indigenous medicine in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Edinburgh Research Archive