Abstract

British colonial power decisively established itself on the Indian subcontinent between 1770 and 1830. This period and the century following it have become the subjects of much creative and insightful research on medical history: the use of medical institutions and personnel as tools for political leverage and power; Anglicist/Orientalist debates surrounding medical education in Calcutta; the birth of so-called Tropical Medicine. Despite much propaganda to the contrary, European medicine did not offer its services in a vacuum. Long-established and sophisticated medical systems already existed in India, developing in new and interesting ways in the period just before the mid-eighteenth century.