Health and Medicine in the Indian Princely States

The book maps developments in public health, the emergence of specialised medical institutions, the influence of western medicine on indigenous medical communities (and their patients) and the interaction between them. Two comparatively large states (Mysore and Travancore), considered ‘progressive’ and ‘enlightened’, and some of the 24 Orissa Princely States, seen as ‘backward’ and ‘despotic’, will be at the centre of investigation. Contentious issues currently debated in the existing scholarship on medicine in British India and other colonies will be explored (such as the ‘indigenisation’ of health services; the inter-relationship of colonial and indigenous paradigms of medical practice; the impact of specific political and administrative events and changes on health policies). Developments in public health and the emergence of medical institutions in Princely India will be traced from both Indian and European perspectives, and British medical policies and the Indian reactions and initiatives they evoked in different Princely States with highly varied socio-economic, cultural and administrative set-ups will be examined.