Studies on Indian Medical History
99: Motilal Banarsidass, 2001. Hardcover. Text in English. 243 pp. Worn and dirty dust jacket. Slightly dirty page edges.
This volume of studies presents the papers given at the second workshop of the European Āyurvedic Society, a group which was formed in Groningen in 1983 The. volume is thus a sequel to Proceedings of the international workshop on priorities in the study of Indian medicine. The workshop was held over a period of three days in September 1985, in the congenial surroundings of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, and it provided a splendid opportunity for scholars in the field of Indian medical history to meet in one place, and to share the latest research in their respective areas. The studies here collected present an unusually wide variety of approaches to the study of the healing arts in India. The historical sources used range from ancient Sanskrit manuscripts and Tibetan blockprints, through nineteenth century Indian newspapers and government reports, to conversations held in the consulting rooms of contemporary Āyurvedic doctors. While each approach is both valid and valuable in its own terms, their combination in the present book provides a view of Indian medical history which transcends the barriers between scholarly disciplines and gives the reader some sense of the vastness of the subject.
The book is divided into three complementary parts: 'The classical tradition', 'Colonial interactions', and 'Modern observations'. This reflects both a division in the source materials and the different scholarly skills required to exploit them, those of the Indologist, the historian, and the medical anthropologist and pharmacognosist. Very Good / Very Good. Item #3953
ISBN: 9788120817685
Price: $30.00