Medicine in India - Systematic Medicine, Medical Concepts And Therapies, Surgery, Modernization And Globalization, Bibliography
ideas healing environment health
The historical record for Indian civilization begins in the third millennium B.C.E., with the Indus Valley culture, but beyond evidence of a good knowledge of the plant and animal environment, little information can be recovered concerning the healing traditions of this time. Simple ideas related to disease and healing can be found in greater abundance in the corpus of religious hymns called the Vedas, composed originally in an old form of Sanskrit during the early to mid-second millennium B.C.E. These ideas have much in common with religious materials worldwide: a concern with hostile demons, curses, and poisoning, and a detailed awareness of the plant world as a source of healing herbs. Outside the metropolis in India today, such ideas continue to form a prominent part of health-related beliefs and activities. Considering health as, in Georges Canguilhem's words, "a margin of tolerance for the inconsistencies of the environment," such practices and ideas can be seen as a perfectly reasonable and indeed rational extension of the use of a continuum of efforts—from prayer to warfare—as means for creating an acceptable environment in which to live.
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The systematic doctrines of ayurvedic medicine included a humoral theory somewhat akin to that of Hippocrates and Galen. Indian medicine admitted three humoral substances, namely, wind, bile, and phlegm. However, a certain indecision is visible within the tradition as to the status of blood, which shared with the humors the critical feature of being able to cause illness through becoming corrupt, …
Surgery had a different history from the other parts of traditional medicine. The compendium of Sushruta includes many chapters on the training and practice of surgeons. The early date of this treatise and the great accuracy, insight, and detail of the surgical descriptions are most impressive. One can infer that the surgical profession had developed over several generations at least and had arriv…
Under first the Moghul and then the British colonial powers, indigenous Indian medicine survived as it always had, mainly through support from patients and the community, but with occasional patronage from the state, with education and practice being devolved and decentralized, often taking place at the family level. During the twentieth century, ayurveda assumed an important role as an icon of na…
Dash, Vaidya Bhagwan. Fundamentals of Āyurvedic Medicine. Vol. 85, Indian Medical Science series. Rev. and enlarged. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1999. Government of India, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. "Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy: A Gateway for Information." Available on the Internet at http://indianmedicine.nic.in/. Jolly, Julius. Indian Medi…
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User Comments
almost 4 years ago
I assert my right to be identified as the author of this article on the history of medicine in India.
Dominik Wujastyk
9 May 2007.