This symposium will address different medical knowledge traditions, at different kinds of ‘work’/functions (such as exchange, institutionalization, marginalization) in the wake of the encounter of non-western traditions with modern medicine.

John Lourdusamy’s paper titled ‘Minding the Body and Binding the Mind’, looks at the ideological background to the introduction of modern medicine in the Indian context by taking the case of Madras Medical College whose establishment in 1835 marked a decisive moment in the encounter of medical traditions. It explicates the ways in which medical ideas and values were imparted and contested through the agency of an educational institution. It will also elucidate the ideological grounds on which alternative medical traditions were marginalized within a specific locale.

Mark Harrison’s paper titled ‘Anglo-Indian Encounters at the Dawn of Empire’ focuses predominantly on encounters between British medical practitioners and Indian Muslims at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in both Britain and India. It will concentrate on knowledge in the workplace, whether in the dissecting rooms of English universities, the hospitals of the East India Company or the palaces of Indian rulers. Its aim is to assess the degree to which knowledge of Western medicine was accepted in the Indo-Muslim world and on what terms.

V.R.Muraleedharan’s paper titled ‘The Tools that Saved Lives’, with its emphasis on clinical and diagnostic tools and practices in Madras Presidency, extends the analysis further into the realm of actual practices. The paper will examine the diffusion and adoption of specific medical technologies (namely x-ray, anaestheology, and incubator) that changed the public image of medicine and popular responses to medical trials and experimentations.

N.Sreekumar’s paper titled ‘Medicine as Culture and Medicine as Science’ would underline the diametrically different approaches to medicine in India. In traditional India, medicine was not just a science, but a way of life. There was a tension between the religious and rational therapeutics. The paper examines how the encounter with modern medicine made this tension more acute and how it impacted on the newly- arriving modern medicine with its unique methodology (philosophy, ethics), therapeutic techniques and approaches (as a science for a modern society )

Renjini Babu’s paper titled ‘Beyond “invincible” West and “stagnant” East’ deals specifically with the Keralam region in southern India. It explores certain historical renderings, both European and local, and highlights the cross-cutting influences of colonialism, missionary work, western medicine and Ayurveda. It expands on how such representations worked reflexively on modern medicine and also influenced the local attempts at ‘revitalization’.