Kill or Cure: week 4
South Asia Interactions between ‘English Medicine’ and Indigenous Medical Practices
Lecturer: David Hardiman
India under the East India Company 1756-1859
• Western medicine was known in India as ‘allopathy’ or ‘English medicine’ – in Hindi: ‘Angreji dava’.
• Indians who practised ‘English medicine’ were known as daktars and their practice ‘doctory’ (daktari).
AryurvedaThe 3 humors
Practitioners: Vaids
Unani TibbThe Four HumorsPractitioners: Hakims
Unani Tibb: taking the pulse
Healing shrines
Exorcist – the Dangs, Gujarat
Ms. S. was mentally affected by witchcraft power - received baptism.
A Bengali Daktar’sPractice
1874
Unqualified ‘daktar’ gives injection
A daktar’s clinic
The revival of Ayurveda and
Unani Tibb
Standardisation of indigenous medicines