A variety of healing systems and techniques —both indigenous as well as foreign—have gained wide acceptance and popularity in India. The earliest contacts with European medical systems go back to the days of early Greco-Roman civilization. Yet, when modern medicine was introduced in India it brought about certain conflicts, which have cultural and moral connotations. They spurred historical changes that had substantial impacts on the lives of people in India. This paper attempts to understand some such cultural and moral conflicts faced both by the Indians and the Europeans—predominantly the British - since 19th century owing to certain peculiar features of modern science in general and medical science in particular with respect to their fundamental assumptions, methods and institutional requirements. Unlike the indigenous systems, the modern medicine that was “officially” promoted by the British possessed a far more organized system of knowledge and was employed methodically with incomparable efficiency in tackling certain diseases that contributed to high mortality rates in the sub-continent. Despite this, the local populace viewed it with suspicion and considered it as opposing some of their long established beliefs and conventions. But for the British, the introduction and direct and indirect imposition of modern medicine was an integral part of their overall project in India.

This paper tries to understand the nature of such an encounter of different knowledge systems as an encounter between two cultures that conceive and understand the concepts of illness, health, healing and wellbeing differently, during a period when medicine in Europe was transformed into a science from an art that was more closely linked with cultural and traditional values. The paper also sees it as an encounter between two different philosophies of life and moral frameworks: while the indigenous methods remained tied to the local culture and belief systems, modern medical science projected itself against traditional and conventional wisdom as a paradigmatic knowledge endeavor. The central concern of this paper is to understand the moral conflicts involved in such a scenario.