Native Bodies, Medical Market and ‘Conflicting’ Medical ‘Systems’: Venereal Diseases and the...

Native Bodies, Medical Marketand ‘Conflicting’ Medical ‘Systems’:

Venereal Diseases and the ‘Vernacularisation’ ofWestern Medical Knowledge in Colonial Bengal

Ratnabir Guha

Existing historiography on colonial medicine in South Asiahas revolved around two opposing views. There is one strandof thought that locates the impact of western medicine mostprofoundly within certain colonial enclaves such as the army,the jails and the lunatic asylums.1 There is another equallypowerful view that seeks to trace how western medicineachieved complete hegemony over existing medical systems,thereby relegating them to the margins.2

In contrast to such views, there is now a growing bodyof work which seeks to demonstrate how the growth of ashared medical market, which operated outside the dynamicsof state power, created a cultural space, where pluralisednotions of disease, body and therapeutics circulated. Thisessay aims to study this market of vernacular medical printand medicinal drugs and emphasises the role of local factorslike private doctors, practitioners of indigenous medicine,charitable dispensaries and vernacular medical tracts incirculating multiple notions of diseases. This was most clearlyseen in the case of venereal diseases such as Syphilis andGonorrhoea. Known as Upadangsha and Prameha in thevernacular, they elicited much public debate and discussionin popular newspapers and medical journals. The medicalmanualists and writers, in the late 19th century, came up

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with a number of explanations regarding the cause, symptomsand treatment of such diseases. These explanations includedboth clinical and extra-clinical notions and were heavilyinfluenced by factors such as race, culture and nationalism.

The Medical Market : Concept Explained

From 1980s onwards the concept of medical market has beenutilised by a large number of medical historians tounderstand the social and economic organisation ofhealthcare, the rise of medical consumerism, thecommercialisation of medical practices and theprofessionalisation of medical practitioners, including the roleof the so-called ‘quacks, charlatans and fakers’ in early modernEurope. Following Roy Porter’s call to do medical historyfrom below, the marketplace soon came to life as animportant heuristic tool revealing illuminating insights intothe histories of both patients and practitioners.3 Thesehistories revealed that in pre-professional system of medicalcare operating in early modern Europe, there existed outsidethe three-part occupational hierarchy of physician, surgeonand apothecaries, a diverse and plural medical market whichextended the treatment options of patients thereby limitingthe power of clinical gaze and the force of official regulations.

In the context of South Asia, it has mainly been utilisedto understand the shifting nature of traditional medicalknowledge systems and practices. Pratik Chakrabarti has usedthe concept profitably in his study of bazaar medicines in18th century India to show how in the early trading years ofthe English East India Company (EEIC), the indigenousbazaar was a crucial site of exchange for goods, services andmedical knowledges between the local practitioners andEuropean doctors and surgeons.4 The surgeons of EEICtoured the bazaars and incorporated some of local medicinesinto their own materia medica. However this exchangebetween European medicine and local medical traditions soonended with the Indian markets being subjugated by western

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medical knowledge systems and practices.Projit Bihari Mukharji on the other hand argues that the

Bengali daktars i.e. the indigenous practitioners of westernmedicine sought to relocate western medical practice firmlywithin an Indian context thereby negotiating with localtherapeutic practices and cultural codes.5 With time,‘vernacularised’ forms of western medical practices emergedthrough the operations of the medical market.

Madhuri Sharma’s detailed empirical work on the revivalof Ayurvedic medicine at the end of the 19th century andRachel Berger’s recently published work on themodernisation of Ayurvedic medicine in colonial north Indiahave also explicated the workings of medical markets inspecific historical and cultural contexts.6 Apart fromAyurveda, the workings of the Indo-Muslim or the Unanimedical market have recently been the focus of works bySeema Alavi and Guy Attewell. Seema Alavi in her study ofUnani medicine in North India shows that the story ofmedical encounter of western medicine with Unani was notsimply a story of domination and subjugation of one by theother. Instead 19th century practitioners of Unani medicineused the medical market in order to negotiate between thetraditional humoral understandings of Unani with modernsecular notions of western medicine.7 Guy Attewell’s equallyrich monograph shows how Unani became ‘systematised’ inthe specific socio-historical context of 19th century India.8

Thus, although the list seems impressive, my work triesto make a contribution to this already burgeoning field, byshowing how the existence of pluralistic medical market atthe end of the 19th century rendered a singular, homogenousunderstanding of a disease undone and what were the areaswhere western and indigenous medical discourses andpractices overlapped and diverged.

The essay contains three main parts: the first part dealswith the emergence of book market and print culture in late19th century Bengal. It shows how popular medical

Native Bodies, Medical Market


knowledge drew eclectically from various sources: westernmedicine, indigenous medical traditions of Kaviraji andHakimi as well as from a mish-mash of folk traditions, faith-based cures and previously circulating knowledge of localmateria medica. Within such a discursive network,boundaries between ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ wereconstantly being reconfigured. The next section deals withthe drug market and actual medical practices operatingwithin colonial dispensaries and the local drug market.Mainly dealing with the treatment of venereal diseases as acase study, I argue that while for the colonial medicine thechallenge was to adapt to local medical practices, for the localmanufacturers of drugs the challenge was to provide amodern, rational alternative to colonial medicine that wouldnot only distinguish itself from the dubious curative practicesoffered by the self-styled medical practitioners and auto-didactic physicians but also imbibe the local cultural codesand idioms. Finally in the last section I deal with the debatesregarding venereal diseases in contemporary public sphere. Itshows how within late 19th century public sphere, discussionsrelating to venereal disease diffused an essentialist notion ofthe disease and gave it a cultural twist.

Daktars and Boddis: Institutionalisation of MedicalPractices in Bengal

The history of colonial medicine in India is often told withinan over-arching encounter framework, within which anincreasingly confident western medical system hegemonisedthe medical market of late colonial Bengal and relegated allother existing systems of medicine to the margins.9 Howevera detailed historical analysis of colonial Bengali medicalmarket would prove that this was not the case. India evenbefore the formal establishment of British rule in India hadclose encounters with the medical systems coming fromoutside the Indian subcontinent. The Muslim conquest inIndia introduced the Unani system of medicine while later

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there emerged a syncretic Hindu-Muslim tradition ofmedicine known as Tibb. In medieval times a number ofEuropean travellers visited India and wrote extensively onIndian medical practices. Travellers such as Francois Bernier,Niccolao Manucci, Garcia d’ Orta and John Ovington notedthe close structural similarities between western and Indianmedical practices. Both were humoral in nature. Moreover,while the Portuguese introduced new plants that found theirway into the Indian pharmacopeia, they also introduced newdiseases. Syphilis, as noted in our introduction, was one suchdisease allegedly brought by the European travellers and wascalled Firangi Roga or the disease of the Portuguese. TheIndian medical practitioners on their part also adopted someEuropean medical practices such as blood-letting in thetreatment of diseases.10

In the early years of EEIC, the company had to dependsignificantly on bazaar supplies and medicines for theirtroops. Further, European surgeons and doctors regularlytoured the bazaars and adopted indigenous practices intotheir medical systems. More significantly, Indian plants andtheir uses found a place in European pharmacopeia. As thecompany increased its territorial authority through wars andarmed encounters, it had to depend largely on Indians forcarrying out subordinate duties under European doctors.This mutual exchange was given an institutional formthrough the establishment of Native Medical Institution(NMI) which aimed at creating a class of native doctors whohad training in western medical practices along with someknowledge of indigenous medical systems. Monetaryassistance was given and successful candidates were employedin the military and civil establishments of the company.However, following the suggestions of the Public InstructionCommittee, Lord William Bentinck ordered for the abolitionof NMI and in its place formed the Calcutta Medical College(CMC) in 1835. CMC, with its emphasis on westernmedical education, ended the era of harmonious co-existence



between contesting medical systems and paved the way forthe dominance of Allopathic medicine.11

The First batch of CMC graduates, which includedeleven students, was employed as Sub-Assistant Surgeons ona monthly salary of a hundred rupees in various dispensariesoperating in and around Bengal. These Sub AssistantSurgeons coming out of the CMC trained in westernmedicine represented the first generation of indigenouspractitioners of western medicine or daktars. Meanwhile,faced with successive cholera epidemics and growing nativepopulation needing medical care, the Company started aHindustani or Military Class and a Bengali Class in 1852.The passed out students of the vernacular class were calledVernacular Licentiates in Medicine and Surgery (VLMS) andprovided the manpower crucial to fill in the lower ranks ofcivil medical services. By 1860s, although the employment ofIndian medical graduates was secured through newregulations, low salaries and racial discrimination ingovernmental services drove these men increasingly towardsprivate practice. Such private practitioners of westernmedicine were therefore important actors in the growth of amedical market that operated outside the dynamics of statepower.12

Another significant group operating in the medicalmarket of late colonial Bengal was the local practitioner ofAyurvedic medicine. Traditionally called Kaviraja (literallymeaning prince of verse) or Vaidya or Boddi (in localparlance), these local healers of medicine alongside Hakims(practitioners of Unani medicine) were the dominant healerswhen western medicine arrived on the landscape of Bengal.At the beginning of the 19th century Ayurvedic medicine wastaught and practiced according to traditional caste rules andAyurvedic knowledge was imparted through the local Tol andMadrasa systems. With the establishment of CMC and thedisbandment of vernacular classes in the 1830s, the death ofthese systems of medicine seemed imminent. However both

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these systems and their respective practitioners showedremarkable resilience by adopting modern techniques andresponding positively to modern consumer forces. Someindividual practitioners were responsible for their revival. InAyurveda, once such figure was Kaviraj Gangadhar Ray. Hebecame the court physician of the Nawab of Murshidabadand a consulting physician to Maharani Swarnamayi Devi ofKasimbazaar. He wrote commentaries to thirty four Sanskrittexts and composed fourty one texts on Ayurveda. Anothercontemporary physician was Gangaprasad Sen. He preparedAyurvedic medicine for sale to other countries and introducedmodern medical practices like asking for fixed consultationfees and sold medicines according to fixed price list. He alsowas the first Ayurvedic physician to publish advertisementsand introduced the first Ayurvedic journal. These twophysicians produced an entire generation of illustriouspractitioners who not only revived traditional healingpractices but more significantly tweaked them along modernprofessional lines. Bijoyratna Sen, student of Gangaprasad,introduced the modern method of pre-prepared medicineinstead of the time honoured practice of making medicinesfor individual patients. Another leading figure wasGangakishore, who started selling Ayurvedic medicine on alarge scale from his Kolutala pharmacy. Several otherpharmacies came up. Mathuramohan Chakravarty foundedthe Shakti Aushadalaya and Jogesh Chandra Ghosh foundedthe Sadhana Aushadalaya while Jaminibhushan Rayintroduced modern anatomy and revived surgery andmidwifery in Ayurvedic curriculum. Finally Ayurveda got aninstitutionalised form through the formation of AyurvedicAssociations and educational institutions such as GobindSundari Ayurvedic College in 1822, Gauriya Sarvavidyayatanaand Viashawantha Ayurveda Mahavidyalaya. In short, theexistence of competing systems of medicine created anatmosphere of medical pluralism and effectively challengedthe singular dominance of Allopathic medicine.13



However, the story of colonial medicine was not simply astory of rival medical systems competing with each other forpublic patronage. Rather there emerged multiple sites whereepistemic tensions arising out of different medical systemswere negotiated while contesting knowledge systemsunderwent mutual transformation. I shall mention three suchsites of contestation and mutual infliction: the site ofvernacular print, the colonial dispensary and the native drugmarket.

Print Culture and the Book Market

For a person contracting VD, late 19th century Bengalprovided multiple options and cures. Existing studies on VDalmost exclusively concentrate on the lock hospitals as a sitefor treatment and cure, ignoring the fact that suchinstitutions were meant only for prostitutes and not forcivilian patients. For a person of moderate means, VDprovided a thriving marketplace, where chapbooks advisedthem of home remedies while quacks and charlatans providedthem with drugs that claimed to miraculously cure suchdiseases. This shared space of vernacular print and indigenousdrugs had a profound impact on how knowledge aboutdiseases circulated within the public domain and how thedebates and discussions pertaining to such diseases shapedtheir popular understanding.

The revolutionary impact of print on cultural modernityof a nation has been a subject of wide intellectual discussion.Benedict Anderson has shown how transformation of printinto a commodity can influence the imagination of a nation.In India, the dominant trend has been to see the growth anddissemination of vernacular print as the principal propellingforce behind the cultural efflorescence of the Bengali middleclass. However, recent studies on vernacular print have upsetthis linear connection between vernacular print and culturaltransformation. Studies by Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar andAnindita Ghosh have pointed out that the impact of print on

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the cultural landscape of Bengal was far more complex thanhitherto acknowledged. Moving out of the ‘highbrow-lowbrow’ and ‘elite-subaltern’ binaries, these studies show thedemocratising impact of popular print on the cultural politicsof Bengal. While Sumit Sarkar has shown the impact ofpopular print in the identity formation of the petty clericalBhadralok community,14 Anindita Ghosh has shown how theimpact of 19th century print was much more pluralised andpolyvalent than previously thought.15 While pre-printmanuscript and oral traditions survived, the literature thatemerged out of the vernacular print was not just thehighbrow literature of Bengal Renaissance. More recentlyProjit Bihari Mukharji’s work has analysed in detail theimpact of print in the formation and consolidation of daktariidentity.16 As daktars emerged as a social category, daktariliterature gained currency. Works on daktari medicine,original or translated, were published from the NorthCalcutta presses. Circulation of such works helped thedaktars to reach out not only to other members of thecommunity but also with the public at large. However, farfrom simply transporting a western model of medicine,daktari print renegotiated with the local medical knowledgesand therapeutic practices and therefore curved out a separateniche of itself as a vernacularised version of what prevailed inEurope. In a similar vein, Shinjini Das has shown how thedebates taking place in print, more specifically those takingplace in the vernacular medical journals of the late 19th

century Bengal, shaped the identity of Homoeopathy as analternative to its rival Allopathy.17 Similar studies have beencarried out in the context of Hakimi and Ayurvedic medicinein colonial north India.18

This paper looks specifically at the impact of print andpharmaceutical market in the understanding of venerealdiseases in late colonial Bengal. Taking cue from the previousstudies, this paper not only carries forward their argumentbut also tries to gauge the impact of market and commercial



forces in the treatment of venereal diseases.Medical literature in vernacular mainly emerged in

Bengal in order to cater to the growing needs of a vernacularstudent community. Although in the 1830s the NMI wasabolished and the vernacular classes of medicine in SanskritCollege and Calcutta Madrasa were disbanded, the colonialstate faced with recurring epidemics decided to throw open avernacular class for training native doctors in 1851, wherelectures were delivered on Anatomy, Materia Medica and thepractice of Medicine.19 In order to cater to this emergingvernacular medical community, a large number of vernacularmedical works were published. From a list prepared byJatindramohan Bhattacharya, we come to know that, whilebetween 1801 and 1817 there were no vernacular works onmedicine, between 1818 and 1843, there was total of 14books published on medicine.20 By 1852 the number hasincreased to 18, which included 6 reprints. By 1865 therewere at least 22 books on medicine which constituted 2.44percent of the total number of books published. Althoughmany of the earlier works were simple translations fromeither Sanskrit or English works, by the second half of the19th century Bengali medical community had published asignificant number of original works.21 Along with increasingoutput, there emerged an unprecedented diversity in thevariety of works published.

While medical literature in the west has graduallyevolved over the centuries from 16th century onwards,changing from high Latin to vernacular, colonialism hastenedthe process in a matter of decades.22 While pre-colonialliterature did have its fair share of commentaries onimportant Sanskrit works, producing an original medical workbased on observation was something new.23 The space of earlydispensaries provided the ground for training andexperimentation. The half-yearly dispensary reports writtenby native doctors described in detail, case studies of patientswith complicated medical histories. Since these reports

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attached to the Annual Dispensary Report of a particularprovince were meant to be circulated among the medicalcommunity for circulation of knowledge, they provided agood training ground for composition of latter-day medicaltexts. Of the various genres available, one significant genrewas the genre targeting specific diseases. They included tractson sexual diseases, diseases of spleen and liver, children'sdiseases and women’s diseases including tracts on menstrualdisorders and those on midwifery.24

Textbooks on Allopathy and Homeopathy formedanother important genre of vernacular print that mainlytargeted the medical students of the Medical colleges.Growing number of medical students studying in Bengalimeant an increasing demand for Bengali terminology.Medical dictionaries and word banks published in the secondhalf of the 19th century provided another fertile site ofvernacularisation of western medicine.Western terminologieson physiology, pathology and drugs were translated inBengali. However this exercise itself was not without its ownset of problems. While some favoured the use of Bengali andSanskrit terms, others pointed out the lack of standardisationin Sanskrit works. In 1877 Rajendralal Mitra made areasoned suggestion. He suggested a flexible schema of usingBengali words where such Bengali words were available; incertain other cases he suggested construction of new wordsfrom Sanskrit roots and finally in all other cases Englishterminologies had to be applied. The question of terminologyor paribhasha remained a vexed question throughout the late19th century and continues to be so in current times.25 Incase of taxonomies relating to VD, the question ofterminology remained an important one as we shall see laterin our essay.

Although not much is known about the authors of thesemanuals, many of them were written by small town nativedoctors and Sub-Assistant surgeons and found mention incolonial records. Thus Hara Charan Sen, medical officer in



charge of the Sherpur charitable dispensary wrote a tract onvenereal diseases and dedicated it to W Wilson, civil surgeonof Maldah while in Jessore’s Amrita Bazaar dispensary;Chandra Kanth Karmakar wrote a pamphlet on the treatmentof snake bites.26 Indigenous practitioners of medicine usedthe new medium of print for standardising classical Sanskritworks which were so long preserved either in manuscriptform or transmitted through oral tradition. While works ofCharaka, Susruta, Madhav Kar and Gobinda Das werepublished in Bengali translations and were circulatedthrough multiple editions, list of substances (dravyagunas),vocabularies and books on local materia medica were alsoextremely popular.27 From the last quarter of the 19thcentury we also have a large number of vernacular medicaljournals published, based entirely on private subscription andenterprise. Although the fate of many such journals wasrather short-lived, nonetheless some of the more popular oneslike Rajendralal Mitra’s Bibidartha Samgraha (1851-61),Chikitsha Sammelani (1885-1894), Chikitshak O Samolochak(18895-96) and Swasthya (1898-1901) found a sizeableaudience which included a significant number of non-medical readers such as lawyers, petty clerks, smalllandholders and station masters.28 One journal, namelyChikitsha Sammelani published articles on all three branchesof medicine: Allopathy, Homeopathy and Ayurveda, thereforeopening up a space for intellectual dialogue and scientificexchange. Further, these journals also bred a class of small-town rural doctors who subscribed to and enthusiasticallyread such journals, thereby forging an ‘imagined community’of vernacular doctors.

The coming of vernacular print and a thriving medicalmarket for books therefore had interesting ramifications forthe social politics of Bengal. Medical education even at theend of the 19th century remained overwhelmingly dominatedby upper-caste Hindus. Despite western medicine’soverwhelming emphasis on surgery and dissection, Hindu

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upper-caste enrollment in Medical schools and collegesremained high. In 1901, out of the total male literatepopulation, Vaidyas constituted about 64.8 percent, followedby Brahmin who constituted about 63.9 percent, andKayasthyas who constituted about 56 percent of the literatepopulation.29 One possible reason for the upper castehegemony in western medical profession was that Englisheducation, of which medicine was a part, increasingly becameassociated with social mobility and bhadralok aspirations.With the decline of commercial enterprises and fall of rentdue to fragmentation of land, government jobs in the field ofmedicine, law and colonial administration etc. became theonly avenue left for the upper caste proprietorial class, forfinancial security and social mobility. Thus from 1880sonwards we see a shift of the priestly and literary castesholding land estates towards English education in order to fitinto governmental jobs.

While this was the case in the field of medical profession,the sphere of vernacular print opened up an alternate spherewhere numerous self-styled doctors, autodidacts andindigenous practitioners of medicine could flourish. Thesedoctors and Kavirajes produced a wide variety of literature:books on totkas and mushtijog (home remedies);30 booksadvising the young on practices of celibacy (Brahmacharyamanuals);31 pedagogic texts on Ayurveda, Allopathy andHomeopathy (Sahaj Daktari Siksha, Sahaj Kaviraji Siksha,etc.)32 and manuals advising married couples on their sexuallives and problems (Yauna Bigyan, Dampatyapranali, RatiJantradir Chikitsha, etc.).33 Although these books oftenposited themselves as scientific, they frequently dreweclectically from a wide variety of traditions: shastricinjunctions, tantric practices, astrology, magic and sorcery,common knowledge of local materia medica etc. Thus oneadvertisement of J Ghosh & Co’s book catalogue placednames of Kaviraji books on one side and books on magic andsorcery on the other. Such books included names such as



Adbhyut Bashikaran Mantra (a book on hypnotism), AdbhyutUstadi Bidyasiksha (a book on charms and spells inorder todispel ghosts, witches and petni or female spirit), AdbhyutGupta Bidyasiksha (a book on tantric practices) and Jadusiksha(a book on magic).34 Within a single text also we find aconstant blurring of the scientific and non-scientific. Thusone Shantiram De’s book ‘Kamratna’ which posed atranslation of Nagabhatta’s Sanskrit text included sections onsexual practices according to Shastric injunctions, homeremedies for common diseases, astrology and a discussion onmenses.35

The democratising effect of vernacular print as it spiraledout of the institutional control of western medical science ofthe colonial state can best be exemplified with the exampleof institutionalisation of hakimi profession in East Bengal.Peasantry in East Bengal was overwhelmingly Muslimdominated, while the proprietorial class was primarily Hindu.The formation of a distinct Muslim communal identityhowever remained absent for a long time in Bengal, partlybecause of the social chasm existing between the upper classAshraf Muslims and the lower class, Bengali speaking, rusticAtraps, and partly because of a syncretic socio-religioustradition based on minor Sufi orders and Sahajiya cults. Inthe 19th century as the medical profession becameincreasingly upper-caste dominated and as Ayurveda becamemore and more Hinduised, a need was felt for the creation ofa Bengali Islamic therapeutic tradition different from itsHindu counterpart. However instead of drawing from themore popular traditions of Unani Tibb and Tibb-ul-Nabi orthe medicine of the prophet it drew eclectically from localreligious cults and folklores about mythic figures associatedwith the Bible and Quran. Projit Mukharji draws ourattention to at least three such traditions: one was a folktradition surrounding the mythical figure of Hakim Luqman,a pre-Islamic sage or wise man associated with biblicaltradition of David and Job; second was a tradition of sorcery

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associated with the exorcist-healer Solomon or Suleiman ofpre-Islamic West Asia and third was a peasant traditionassociated with the popular figure of Manikpir who wasconsidered a patron saint of cattle. 36

19th century vernacular print transformed these hithertoexisting oral-folk traditions into a standardised written form.With the geographical dispersal of printing presses outsideCalcutta, books began to be published from other places ofBengal such as Dacca, Murshidabad, etc. The pressesoperating in East Bengal thus catered to the local populationof Muslims who increasingly felt alienated in a communalenvironment. Written in what Sukumar Sen calls "MusalmaniBangla", the language drew heavily from the Perso-Arabiclexicon rather than modern Bengali which took a sharpSanskritised tatsama turn at the middle of the 19th century.37

Many of these books were published from Dacca’s AzimiPress and were sold in a bookstore situated below theWalliullah mosque in the city’s Chowkbazar.38 The print andsale of such books from a press that specialised in religiousbooks is a clear indication of the overtly religious tone of thebooks. Many of the Hakimi texts were thus directed towardsthe poor Muslim peasants and couched therapeutics withinan overtly communal agenda. One Hakimi text thus notedthat Bengal is filled with unscrupulous kavirajes duping thepoor Muslim peasants.39 The author was writing this book fortheir benefit. Similarly in another Lokmani text, the authorMuhammad Moyazzem Ali of Kummilla stated that forseveral years he has been conducting a successful Hakimibusiness based on the Lokmani tradition. However since hewas getting old he thought that it was an opportune momentto share Lokman’s age-old prescriptions with his largerMuslim brethren. He hoped that the book would find a largeaudience and would produce many new hakims who woulduse the simple and effective treatments of Lokman in orderto help poor Muslims.40

Thus what is clear from the above discussion is that



these books, unlike the more credible works produced by thedoctors and other native practitioners of medicine, made noclaim to scientificity or western medical rationality. However,they derived their legitimacy from an already existingtradition of orality, folk wisdom and time-tested indigenoustherapeutics. Thus, for instance Maulvi Abdus Sobhan, whileciting various sources of his knowledge, from the fakirs, jogisand brahmacharis of Assam to the Bhutiyas of Bhutan (whomhe had met while working as a government land surveyor),went on to cite common medicinal herbs easily found in EastBengal.41 Similarly Abdul Kasem who claimed to haveknowledge of the Cholemani tradition cited kala jeera forprameha.42

Medical eclecticism reigned supreme in such vernaculartexts. It was common for a Hakimi text to cite daktarimedicine and a daktari text to cite Deshiya Byabosthya(indigenous remedy) for each disease. Thus Hara CharanSen’s book, would quote in detail Allopathic prescriptionsalong with indigenous remedies mainly drawn from Kavirajitradition with each disease described.43 Similarly in Dr.Mahendranath Ray’s text Allopathic Dhatu Daurbalyo OUpodongsho Pidar Chikitsha, the author would go on to citeEnglish pharmacists and druggists operating in the city alongwith Butto Kristo Pal’s Kaviraji shop where medicines forvenereal diseases could be purchased.44 Similarly, whilementioning details of injection preparation for Syphilis andGonorrhoea, he went on to suggest the recipe of swarnaghotito salsa (a concoction of mercury,sulphur, Swarnasindoor,Makardhwaj along with 1 tola gold leaf ). He even urged thereaders to buy the salsa at a reasonable rate from Kumartulli’sfamous Kobiraj Bijoyratna Sen.45 On the other hand AbdulKasem in his Chahi Asal Ajaeb Cholemani, suggested daktariremedies for Hayeja (cholera) and common cold.46

Thus we see in the world of vernacular print theboundaries between western medical knowledge and commonwisdom was being constantly blurred. Medical rationality

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and popular wisdom thrived side by side; both making useof the new found medium of print. However, even withinthis diffused space of medical print, there seems to be apattern in the way texts draw their moral legitimacy. Whilethere was a tendency of the indigenous practitioners ofmedicine to draw their legitimacy from western medicine, forthe practitioners of western medicine the task was to adaptan alien system of medicine to local cultural codes through aconstant reference to locally available medical knowledge,terms, categories, taxonomies and therapeutic practices.

The Drug Market and Medical Practices

The history of drug market in colonial Bengal providesanother interesting point of reference to our discussion ofvernacularisation. However, unlike medical print, the historyof the drug market has not been studied at all.47

The 19th century drug market was littered with privatedoctors and native practitioners of medicine providingmedical care for syphilitic patients. Along with regulardoctors and more famous hakims and kavirajes, thereremained several dubious practitioners of medicine. Acombination of several commercial forces such as high fees ofEuropean doctors and famous kavirajes,48 lack of adequatenumber of governmental dispensaries compared to the totalnumber of people needing health care, easy availability of thecommercial folk healers and the growth of market forcesassured a place for such practitioners. They sold a widevariety of nostrums for a wide range of diseases. By takingadvantage of the print medium they made sure that theirmedicines reached far wide where western medicine couldnot. They often made fantastic claims and lured theconsumers with attractive pecuniary offers. However, exceptfor a large amount of advertising materials, very little isknown about these individuals.

Vernacular print provided a new opportunity to peddletheir products to customers residing in Calcutta as well as in



small district-towns and villages. Apart from Bengali languagenewspapers and bhadralok-owned English newspapers likeAmrita Bazaar Patrika, Bengalee and The Hindoo Patriotregularly published adverts of such private pharmacies anddispensaries. While newspapers published from Calcuttamainly remained an urban phenomenon, there was oneparticular genre of printed literature published from theNorth Calcutta presses that successfully transcended barriersof class and social hierarchy and reached hundreds of Bengalihouseholds. Panjikas or Almanacs remained, according toseveral estimates, the single most important genre ofrecreational literature published by Bottola presses and nextto educational literature it had the one of the highest rates ofcirculation.49 According to James Long the total annualproduction of Almanacs in Bengal was a minimum of onelakh thirty five thousand copies and could well reach a totalfigure of two lakh fifty thousand. By late 19th century,panjika became the single largest item printed at Bottola andbecame an important source of knowledge dissemination andadvertisements of consumer goods and services. Apart fromthe list of auspicious dates, the astrological implications ofplanetary positions and information of several importantHindu festivals, they also contained practical information: listof railway timetables, fare charts, list of public holidays,postal charges, session dates and fees of court. Advertisementsof indigenous drugs, medicines and Bengali books inhabitedsuch an extra-diegetic space within the panjikas and give us aglimpse of the indigenous drug market operating in colonialBengal.50

For the sick poor however, the charitable dispensary wasperhaps a more reasonable option. In the charitabledispensaries, European medicines were usually distributed forfree to the poor. In other cases they had to be bought at thecost price.51 Each dispensary had to prepare an annual indentbased on the consumption of the past years. These indentswere then dispatched from the Medical Department and

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were received at the India Office. Supplies were shipped fromEngland and were received at the Company’s Medical Stores,from where they were dispatched to the different dispensaries.The entire process was time-consuming and sometimes sevento eight months would pass between the receipt of the indentat the India Office and their arrival at the stores in India.Although the opening of the Suez Canal expedited theprocess, yet every time a war broke out, imports used tosuffer. Further, in times of epidemic, when demand formedicines went up, the dispensaries had to dip into theirreserves, which further created a crisis. Finally, the buildingsoccupied by the Store department at Fort William inCalcutta were found to be too small for storage. Due to allsuch reasons, the colonial dispensary came to rely heavily onindigenous drugs also known as bazaar medicines.52

Bazaar medicine is a term popular in the governmentalrecords, which meant drugs procured locally by thedispensaries which included mainly galenicals but sometimesalso chemicals. It was mainly due to the European medicalcommunity’s dependence on indigenous drugs and medicinesthat they came to take some interest in the medicinalproperties of native plants and herbs. The companyestablished physic gardens in order to cultivate plants havingmedicinal properties. In Bengal Presidency alone there werefour such gardens operating in late 19th century: Saharanpur,Lucknow, Darjeeling and Calcutta.53 Within the dispensary,native drugs were heavily used, which considerably broughtdown the overall expenses of the dispensary. Dispensingmedicine was a practice that largely depended on thehumour of an individual officer. Although the BritishPharmacopoeia remained the authoritative guide to all themedical officers in India for administration of Europeandrugs, administration of indigenous drugs often depended onthe personal knowledge of the medical officer in question.They were often encouraged to experiment with local materiamedica and replace European drugs sometimes exclusively



with indigenous drugs. The dispensary therefore acted as asite for clinical trial of indigenous materia medica, whileknowledge of European drugs also spilled outside thedispensary through the Kavirajes, Hakims, Dais and nativedoctors who worked, assisted or got trained in thedispensaries. While European doctors continued their rantagainst the indigenous medical system as a whole, within thespace of the dispensary they continued to use theprescriptions written by local hakims and kavirajes. Theirunderstanding of the local materia medica was highly valuedand was given fair trail within the dispensary. Europeanmedicines also found their way outside the dispensarythrough curious means. Highly commercial medicines likequinine, chiretta, jalap, castor oil and cholera pills were soldin the market by local indigenous practitioners.54 Duringtimes of epidemic, when supplies of European medicineinvariably fell short in comparison to their demand, bazaarmedicines gave European medicines a tough competition.55

The colonial government itself sometimes encouraged the saleof European medicines in bazaars in order to relieve theburden on charitable dispensaries. Thus Sir Richard Temple,Lt Governor of Bengal proposed to allow zamindars and otherrich villagers to buy quinine in bulk and then distributethem to the poor during epidemics.56 Such mutuality interms of providing medical care to the colonised people anddependence on each other for therapeutic practices hadinteresting effects on the actual treatment of specific diseases.The case of VD abundantly clarifies this point.

Much has been written on the use of mercury andmercurial poisoning in the treatment of venereal diseases.57 Inearly modern Europe, a great debate raged between the so-called mercurialists and the non-mercurialists. Two of themost popular natural remedies known to modern Europewere Sarsaparilla and Guaiac resin.58 The Guaiac tree(Guaiacum officinale, lignum sanctum) is a holy tree, whicharrived in Europe from the torrid zone of America: South

31

Florida, Bahamas, Cuba and San Domingo, in around 1508.Its active ingredient can be found in its resin which has anacrid taste and has a diaphoretic and laxative effect. Apartfrom Guaiac, another important herb was Sarsaparilla whichwas also native to America. A decoction made fromsarsaparilla was used as a blood cleanser and an appetizer. Ina high dose it caused diarrhoea, salivary secretion,perspiration and high urinary output. Thus, in accordancewith the medical ideas of that period, sarsaparilla wasexcellent for purging the body. Since Syphilis was thought tobe a New World disease, it was natural to think that theremedy would also come from the New World. These herbshad a purging effect and caused perspiration, diarrhoea andsalivation. Thus it was thought that consumption of theseherbs would cause cleansing of blood.59

Mercury on the other hand was thought to be an easterncure. It was known to the Greeks and Romans as a highlypotent poison and was to be used only in small doses, thattoo externally not internally. In Ayurveda mercury isconsidered to be an important cure for many diseases.Raskarpur (a preparation of calomel, i.e. mercurous chloridewith ten percent of corrosive sublimate) was used by theKavirajes for venereal afflictions.60 In many 19th centuryvernacular texts by Kavirajes we see the continued use ofRaskarpur.61 However, mercury when used in high doses alsocaused mercurial poisoning. The European medicalcommunity targeted the indigenous medical practitionersparticularly on the above ground. Dr. Norman Chevers, whoin his Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for Bengal and NorthWestern Province made a detailed survey of criminal casesbased on reports of the criminal courts of Bengal and NorthWestern provinces, gave us a comprehensive list of vegetableand mineral poisons available in the bazaars of India.62 Theseincluded poisons used for assassination and suicide (Aconite,Opium, Nux Vomica and Oleander) those used forintoxication and insensibility (Dhatura and Ganja), those



used to induce abortion (Lal Chitra) and those given asmedicines (Bishbari and Raskarpur).63 These poisons werecommonly used in a variety of crimes: dacoities by thugees,abortion of illegal pregnancies of widows, poisoning ofprostitutes by jealous lovers.64 Although Raskarpur wasstrictly speaking not a poison, a large number of cases werereported every year where the victim had died due tomercurial poisoning.

Chevers reported a case, which came in the NizamatAdalat of Bengal, where one prostitute named Wazeerun wasallegedly poisoned by her paramour Gouri, who had givenher sweetmeats in which he had put Raskarpur. AlthoughChevers doubted the report of the chemical examinationconducted by the native Sub-Assistant Surgeon, he did agreethat abuse of mercury was highly prevalent in the medicinesadministered by the kavirajes for the treatment of Syphilis.65

Miserable cases of destruction of mouth and jaws caused bythe native practice of salivation by mercurial fumigation werenoted in syphilitic cases in various hospitals and dispensariesthroughout Bengal. The usual practice by a native hakim orkaviraj was to make the patient sit on a cane bottomed chair,under which a pan of ignited charcoal was placed with thenative preparation of mercury. Sometimes the patient wasmade to inhale toxic mercurial fumes from a bhatti.66 Dr.R.H. Stevens noted a case of a Bengali boy aged 13 sufferingfrom a spleen disease. Salivation by a local hakim had causedsloughing of the lower eyelid and destruction of the eyeballthat came out almost without the use of knife.67 Another caseof an unnamed sepoy (No. 1243) was reported from Bengal,who had originally concealed his real disease. Four days afterhe was brought to the hospital, he admitted that he wassuffering from Syphilis, when he could no longer bear thepain. He was given a precautionary and a mild course ofmercury biniodide and was discharged from the hospital.After about two months he was again admitted to thehospital; this time due to a sprained ankle. Doctors soon

33

noted that he was covered with squamous syphilide and hisgeneral constitution was extremely weak. Although thedoctors tried to recover his constitution he soon developed allthe symptoms of mercurial poisoning: swollen face, enlargedglands, horrible fetor of breath, swollen and painful gums,white and trembling tongue, loose teeth. Few days later hedied in the hospital. During the time of his stay, headmitted that he had taken large quantities of Raskarpur butrefused to reveal as to who had administered him the drug.68

Similarly in a Darjeeling dispensary, a Nepali boy wasadmitted who had a similar case of mercurial poisoning. Thedoctors however were able to save him by a timelyapplication of iodide of potassium and an external applicationof opium liniment.69 Even when mercury was not applied,native remedies by quacks often seemed ineffective. Ameeran,a 45 year old Muslim woman was admitted to the Patnadispensary. About two years ago she had Syphilis and wastreated by a native doctor. Although she was perfectly curedof her venereal sores within a month’s time, she soondeveloped a rash on her genitals and a small swelling on herclitoris. Soon the swelling turned into a large tumor, almostsix inches in size and had to be surgically removed.70

Colonial dispensary and hospital records abound in suchinstances of gullible patients being duped by native doctorsonly to be saved by the timely intervention of westernrational medicine. European medical community used theseinstances to make an argument for governmental interventionthrough medical registration and strict quality control overmanufacture of indigenous drugs (interventions which dideventually come but only in the second decade of the 20th

century). However, despite their rant against indigenousmedicines, they continued to ‘learn’ from the medicalpractices of native hakims and kavirajes, especially their richcorpus of materia medica, which has been perfected overcenturies through empirical trial and observation. WhileArnold sees the second half of 19th century as a decisive point



of departure from the earlier Orientalist tradition ofrespectful engagement with indigenous medical texts andmateria medica, our sources reveal that at the local level ofdispensaries, such engagement with local knowledge ofmedicinal plants and herbs continued. The space ofdispensary continued as a site of clinical trial of local materiamedica, as pointed out by several scholars such as KavitaShivaramakrishnan and Seema Alavi.71

In the treatment of Syphilis and Gonorrhoea, easilyavailable local drugs and plants continue to provide fruitfulalternatives to more expensive European drugs (see Table 1).Native doctors often provided detailed reports on the use oflocal herbs and plants, even mentioning their doses andmethod of application. This knowledge of indigenous materiamedica often came from their interaction with the localkavirajes and hakims who came to work in the dispensaries.These reports then made their way to the higher levels ofcolonial medical bureaucracy and sometimes found place inthe publications of pharmacopoeias like W.H. Ainslie’sMateria Medica (1826) and W.B. O’ Shaughnessy’s BengalPharmacopoeia (1844).72 These texts, particularlyShaughnessy’s Pharmacopoeia remained the most authoritativeguide for all the working dispensaries all over the country.And yet the Committee on the Supply of Drugs (1875)urged the government to encourage dispensaries to come upwith their own pharmacopoeias based on careful observationof indigenous drugs. In their half-yearly reports to theInspector General, native doctors observed in detail the useof local drugs even mentioning their precise doses.73 Thus inthe treatment of Gonorrhoea, Gurjan balsam came to replaceits counterpart Copaiba balsam. Another drug used in thetreatment of Gonorrhoea was Pedalium murex locally calledgokheroo. Native practitioners used the berries and leaves toprepare a compound decoction of sarsaparilla. It was entirelynative and was reported to have grown abundantly in gardensand hedges throughout Bengal. Kababchini (Piper cubeba) was

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another popular drug for gonorrhoea which was used in bothhakimi and kaviraji medicines. In the treatment of Syphilis,extracts from marking nut also known as bhela (Semecarpusanacardium) was used by native kavirajes.74 It was promptlygiven a trial by the native doctor in Hugli Emambarahhospital.75 The problem of mercury was never effectivelysolved in the actual medical practices of the dispensaries.Although by the second half of the 19th century sarsaparilla,rhubarb, potassium iodide, tamarind, purges along with ‘restand general cleanliness’, came to replace mercury in thetreatment of syphilis,76 we continue to see support forRaskarpur both in dispensary practices as well as in medicalliterature produced by native allopathic doctors.77

If the problem for European medical community was toincorporate Indian materia medica within the practices of thedispensary, for the native practitioners of medicine, the taskat hand was to familiarise native people with medicine andtherapeutics alien to their culture. Of the medicines sold andadvertised by the native drug manufacturers, salsas came tooccupy an important position as a projected cure for venerealafflictions and as a purifier of blood. The world salsa is acorrupted form of the word ‘sarsa’ which is a shortenedversion of the word sarsaparilla, the New World cure forvenereal afflictions. Advertisements of medicines byindigenous manufacturers, especially those by Calcuttakavirajes, however, seem to appropriate salsa within theAyurvedic materia medica and give it a history it never had.The main ingredient in these salsas was not sarsaparilla butHemidesmus indicus, a commonly known indigenous plantwidely recognised in the traditional Indian systems ofmedicine as an effective cure for a wide range of diseases suchas blood diseases, liver complaints, renal and urino-genitaldisorders, venereal diseases etc.78 Usually called Anantmul inthe lower provinces of Bengal, it is also known in differentparts of the country under different names such as Kapuri,



Sugandhipala, Sariva, Sarbia, Naruninti Nannari, Tygadeberu,Anant Vel and Durivel.79 While the plant has been wellknown in traditional systems of medicine, in the late 19th

century it was reincarnated in the form of an alien drugcalled sarsaparilla.

Indigenous drug manufacturers regularly publishedadverts of salsas in panjikas and vernacular newspapers;often writing in copious details about the benefits of sucha drug. Kaviraj Satishchandra Sharma’s advert in NutanPanjika of 1898-99 stated that salsa is a kind of creepergrowing in the mountainous regions of temperate countries(parbaityadeshajatalatabishesh).80 This plant in combinationwith the extracts derived from various other indigenous plantsand herbs have produced the Ayurvedic salsa. This salsa wasmainly touted as an effective blood purifier that cleansedpolluted blood (dushita rakta) and helped to regenerate bloodcells (paramanu). Pollution was mainly understood assomething caused by mercurial poisoning and venerealdiseases. HDM & Co Patent Aushadalaya of Calcuttaadvertised its Cooperative Salsa as an effective remedy for atleast twelve problems, all arising from venereal ills. Its advertdeclared that the salsa purifies blood and generates newerblood cells. It purges mercurial poisoning from the body,cures rheumatism, eye disease, nervous debility and cough.But most importantly it purged venereal poison out of thebody. Venereal poison was blamed for impotency, congenitaldisorders and even menstrual problems. Generations of youngchildren were said to bear the brunt of their parent’s impureblood. Further, venereal poison was also blamed for makingsperm weak and not having enough potential for generation.81

In a similar vein, another advertisement from B Brother’s &Co claimed to purge out mercury from the body and cure allmercury-induced skin diseases such as chancres, mercurialsores, syphilitic sores, venereal bubo and rashes. The productwas called ‘Anti Syphilitic Drops Salsa’ and claimed that users

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can actually see mercury being discharged from the bodyduring urination.82 Thus it seems that European medicalcommunity’s charge of mercurial abuses was taken seriouslyby the indigenous drug manufacturers. A governmentpensioner named Kalidas Sarkar and his son Hiralal Sarkarsold their ‘Non-Mercurial Syphilitic Pills’ claiming that itsrecipe was given to them by a Muslim fakir of the Nepaljungle towards the end of the mutiny. Similarly MuhammadAbdul Rab of Jalpaiguri sweared in the name of Allah (Allahkasam!) that his medicines did not contain mercury.83

The narrative of mercurial poisoning was couched withina larger narrative of eugenic concerns and Bengali racialweakness. Advertisers often raised the fear of generations ofBengali children rendered weak and blind due to congenitalSyphilis and Gonorrhoea. One advertiser therefore claimedthat if human blood is polluted by Syphilis, then male semen(sukra) loses its generative power. Such men usually pass onthe blame to the wife. Some even remarry twice or thrice.But no matter how many times they remarry, if venerealpoison stays back in the body, they will not produce healthyprogeny. Another advertisement of H.D. Nandan & Co’sSurasanjibani Salsa claimed that sages and householders ofancient times lived long due to the magical properties of alarge number of Ayurvedic medicinal plants and herbs.84

Extracts from such plants and herbs have been combined toproduce this salsa. It was even claimed to be one of the elixirscoming out of the mythic churning of the ocean. Illustrationsof healthy and weak Bengali babus inserted within suchadvertisement texts further consolidated the fears of racialweakness.The trajectory of Sarsaparilla, a New World plant inthe colony, therefore parallels the history of vernacularisationof medical knowledge in colonial Bengal. Salsa wasrepositioned within the market economy of Bengal as a drugthat was not only indigenous but also cured the illsassociated with quackery.



Table 1: Names of European drugs to be replaced byIndian drugs

Name of European Drug Name of Indigenous Drug

Tannic and Gallic Acid Indian gall nutsMatico Use of Indian astringentsAloe Aloe from Indian plantsChamomile Baboona flowerHorse Radish Moringa rootCantharides Mylabris cichoriiRhubarb East Indian RhubarbRose Leaves Procure in IndiaSoap, soft and hard Procure in IndiaSarsaparilla Hemidesmus IndicusSquills Rely on Indian plantsJalap Kala danaKino Indian KinoCopaiba Balsam Gurjun balsamSaffron Procure in IndiaTreacle Procure in IndiaTragacanth Procure in IndiaValerian root Procure in IndiaAlmond oil Terminalia CatappaOlive oil SepamumAnise oil Ajwain oilMyrrh Procure in IndiaDill water Anethum sowaOak Bark Babool barkBeeberian BarberryChlorinated lime Other disinfectantsChicona bark Sufficient bark to be

retained for preparation ofthe tincture and extracts

Source: Report of the Committee on the supply of drugs in India (1875)

in Proceedings of GOB/Medical/March 1878/No: 31-32/W.B.S.A.

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Debating Sexual Diseases in Print: Medical Taxonomies,Cultural Diseases and National Health

In such a space where contesting medical systems jostled forpublic attention, what would happen to the idea of a disease?Can such a market sustain multiple notions of a disease? Thehistory of the etiology of venereal diseases clarifies this pointabundantly. Although we now know of a total number oftwenty different varieties of venereal diseases, their recognitionand identification as well as their differential diagnosis, i.e.distinguishing one disease from another, required scientificknowledge that only became available in the late 19th and theearly 20th centuries with the laboratory revolution and thecoming of the Germ Theory.85 Till then there was no clear-cut distinction between Syphilis and Gonorrhoea anddifferent diseases were understood under umbrella terms suchas Venus illness, Morbus Gallicus, Pox, lecherous sickness andSyphilis. Each term had an interesting etymological historyand emerged from a combination of factors such asobservation of symptoms, available scientific knowledge andcultural considerations.86 Although Gonorrhoea has beenmentioned in antiquity, the term Syphilis emerged only inthe 16th century. In the year 1530, Girolamo Francastorowrote the poem Syphilis Sive Morbus Gallicus where he usedthe term, having derived from a Greek mythology.87 Thecommon 19th century usage was however venereal diseases,under which a wide range of urino-genital disorders could beunderstood.

In 19th century colonial records the most commonly usedterm was also venereal diseases. Indexes of colonial records aswell as individual colonial records apply this term. Europeanmedical officials often used the umbrella term venerealdiseases, making little distinction between primary andsecondary Syphilis, hard and soft chancre and Gonorrhoea.88

Edmund A. Parkes in his Manual of Practical Hygiene justifiedthe use of the term in the following words:



It is convenient for our purpose to put together alldiseases arising from impure sexual intercourse,whether it be a simple excoriation which has beeninoculated with the natural vaginal mucus or withleucorrhoeal discharges and which may producesome inguinal swelling and may either get well in afew days or last for several days; or whether it be aninflammation of the urethra produced by specific (ornonspecific leucorrhoeal) discharge, or whether it beone of the forms of syphilis now diagnosed as beingin all probability separate and special diseases havingparticular courses and terminations89

Thus Edmund Parkes writing in the 1864 was still notentirely sure as to whether Syphilis was a separate disease anda different disease from other varieties of venereal afflictions.The medical practice in Europe then was to identify diseasesbased on symptoms and not on causative agent or the actualpathogen. However with the discovery of causative agent ofGonorrhoea by Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser in 1879(Gram-negative Neisseria Gonorrhoea bacterium named afterits discoverer) and that of Syphilis by Fritz RichardSchaudinn in 1905 (a spirochaete called Treponema pallida)that Syphilis was distinguished from other varieties of venerealafflictions.90

According to T. A. Wise, Syphilis as we understand ittoday did not have a Sanskrit name. Instead its name wasderived from the Europeans who first visited India. In a 16th

text called Bhavaprakasa, we come across a disease calledFirangi Roga, literally meaning the disease of the Portuguese.In this work the disease in question is characterised by all thesymptoms of secondary Syphilis, as detailed by Europeanauthors of that time, such as cutaneous eruptions andaffections of the bones, particularly those of nose and palate.Wise, writing in 1845, therefore stated that Firangi Roga inall probability was Syphilis and went on to cite the following

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reasons: 1. Ancient authors who had provided us withminute details of the symptoms of various diseases, could nothave missed a disease had it been so prevalent. 2. The rapidspread and initial virulence of the disease in the 15th century,which was only possible in case of a new disease. 3. Analogywith other diseases such as small pox and measles prove thatnew diseases may indeed spread from one place to another.91

By 19th century, however, the term Firangi Roga has beenreplaced by a variety of other terms. Three of the mostpopular terms we come across in popular vernacular medicaltracts are: garmi, prameha and upadangsha. In all probabilityGarmi was a catch-all term relating to all varieties of venerealdiseases and the most popular term among lay people. Adictionary complied in the year 1837 lists both garmi andupadangsha under the heading venereal or relating to sexualintercourse.92

The terms upadangsha and prameha had a moreantiquated origin. The term upadangsha comes from theSanskrit words upa meaning near and dangsha meaningbiting.93 In Ayurvedic texts, upadangsha is understood as soreson genitals produced either by mechanical injuries of thegenitals or by lack of cleanliness or due to washing of thegenitals with impure water after sexual intercourse. Fivedifferent forms of sores are mentioned, which aredistinguished from each other by their colour and nature oftheir discharge. They are battika (characterised by darkcolours of the pustules, lancinating pain and whitedischarge), paittika (characterised by redness of pustules,bloody discharge and burning pain), shleshmika (largepustules with itching sensation), sannipatika (complicatedform of the above disease and is considered incurable) andfinally agantuka (accidental injuries to the generative organs).It is also stated: should the above sores be treated by anignorant person or should the victim continue to have sexualintercourse with women, he will die from the sloughing ofparts and the fever that accompanies it.94 The etiology of



prameha is even more interesting. While upadangsha isunderstood as a disease of the genitals, prameha is understoodas a disease which results in the morbid secretion of theurine. Susruta mentions twenty varieties of prameha of whichten are caused by kapha (phlegm), six are caused by pitta(bile) and four are caused by vayu (wind). The distinctionbetween the twenty varieties of prameha is mainly based onthe colour of the discharges.95

In the indigenous medical texts produced in 19th centuryBengal, these two terms occur repeatedly along with a hostof other vernacular terms in order to describe venerealdiseases or diseases related to generative organs orreproductive organs (ratijantradir pida/ jananendriyer pida).However in the context of the 19th century medical marketin Bengal, venereal diseases meant an assemblage of variousdiseases, some of which an organic etiology but many ofwhich emerged from a specific cultural understanding of thebody and a community’s excessive preoccupation with bodyfluids, especially semen. Native practitioners of medicine,whether they were operating within a western system ofmedicine or one of the several indigenous system of medicine,had to interpret Syphilis and Gonorrhoea in cultural termsreworking them through certain cultural codes which wouldbe easily accessible to the common people. Most of themedical texts we come across differ from the original humoralunderstanding of the disease at least in two respects:

Firstly there is an overwhelming emphasis on the loss ofsemen.96 Semen understood as dhatu is one of the sevenimportant components that make the human body. The fiveelements (panchabhutas) that constitute the universe such asether (akasha), wind (vayu), water (ap), earth (prithvi) andfire (agni) are also found in the food that we intake, whichare transformed into the seven important components of thebody in successive transformations. The food is transformedinto food juice (rasa), then blood (rakta), flesh (mangsha), fat(meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja) and finally into semen

43

(sukra). Semen is therefore understood as the most vitalcomponent of the body and the vital juice that makes thewhole human body.97 Despite Ayurveda’s overwhelmingemphasis on semen, the anxiety regarding the loss of semenin the context of venereal disease, especially prameha, is a19th century addition. In Susruta, loss of semen is mentionedbut appears to be only marginal. Of the twenty varieties ofprameha discussed by Susruta, it is only in one varietynamely sukrameha, that loss of semen is mentioned. Howeverin 19th century medical texts loss of semen in pramehaappears to be the most important symptom. A kaviraji textfrom 1876 gives the symptom of prameha in the followingwords: prameha is characterised by pain in the penis alongwith fever, high temperature, thirst, loss of appetite, vomitingtendency and cough. There is a constant seminal discharge,either thick or watery, in various colours through urine. Alltypes of prameha soon lead to honey like secretion of dhatu(madhurnyay dhatu ksharita hay) which is consideredincurable.98 In many other texts, prameha is directly linkedto other diseases like Spermatorrhoea, nocturnal emissions,sexual debility and impotency. An 1881 daktari manual byHara Charan Sen defines Spermatorrhoea or Sukraskhalan as adisease which is a direct result of Gonorrhoea. Long standingGonorrhoea or repeated affliction of the disease weakens thegenerative organs. This leads to chalky secretion throughurine (thought to be semen) along with general physical andmental weakness, involuntary discharges of semen, impotencyetc.99 A homeopathic manual from 1923 describesSpermatorrhoea as a constant loss of semen from the urethralorifice and lists a variety of symptoms such as involuntary lossof seminal fluid either at night or day due to minor irritationof the penis along with nervous debility. In an 1897translation of Alvin E Small’s Decline of Manhood by ananonymous writer, syphilitic infection and urinary tractinfections are directly blamed for nocturnal emissions orswapnadosha.100



Secondly, the 19th century texts emphasise sexualindulgence or promiscuity associated with prameha. This toois absent in Sanskrit texts. According to Susruta, the externalcauses of the disease are: 1. idle, sedentary habits, whichinclude sleeping during the day and 2. excessive consumptionof sweet liquids and fat producing food.101 Upadangsha ismainly understood as a mechanical injury to the generativeorgan. Medical writers of 19th century Bengal, across medicaldisciplines emphasise sexual indulgence and coitus with aprostitute, an unclean woman or a fallen woman (bhrastanari)as the only cause behind upadangsha and prameha. HaraCharan Sen in his books mentions that usually venerealdiseases occur when a man cohabits with an uncleanprostitute or a fallen woman cohabits with many men.102 Dr.Mahendranath Ray in his 1906 manual on VD says thathumans have six enemies (shadripu) within. They are lust(kama), anger (krodh), greed (lobha), arrogance (mada),attachment (moha) and covetousness (matsarya). Sages inancient times could win over these ripus. Hence they werecalled jitendriya (one who has won over the senses). Howeverin present times, men have fallen victim to lust or desire.They indulge in sexual excesses or coitus with prostitutes.They therefore suffer from various diseases of which pramehaand upadangsha are the most fatal. Only prostitutes carrysuch diseases. One who indulges in a sexual relation with aprostitute will surely catch one of these diseases sooner orlater. Those who resist temptations of prostitutes indulge inmasturbation. They waste semen and therefore suffer fromdhatu daurbalyo (literally meaning weakening of dhatu) andimpotence.103 A 1924 manual by Dr. ChandrakantaChakravarty, which strictly works within a rationalist westerntradition, suggests use of condoms and resorting to only ‘highclass’ prostitutes as means of preventing the disease. Hefurther states that since prostitutes are the main vectors ofthis disease, prostitution should be criminalised and menshould be encouraged to live with their wives in healthy areas

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(swasthyakarparibesh). Prostitution was therefore seen as notonly as a source of contagion but also as a source of pollutingthe moral environment.104

How do we make sense of the changes brought about inthe late 19th century regarding venereal diseases? In the late19th century contagious diseases were often linked to thediscussion of nationalism and national health. Infection,although a pre-modern concept, was now touted as a leadingcause of disease, associated with moral and physicaldegeneration of the Bengalis as a race, which was mainly seenas a result of loss of political power and economic enterpriseof the Bengali middle class intellectuals. The cause ofBengalis afflicted with contagious diseases found a profoundresonance in the medical writings of the Bengali daktars andkavirajes especially in the domain of medical journalscirculating in large numbers in late colonial Bengal. In thesedebates and discussions, the cause of Bengalis being afflictedwith contagious diseases was often seen in relation to the lossof moral and material weakness of the Bengali communityand in contrast to the economic supremacy achieved by othercommunities thereby replacing the hegemony of the Bengalis.The crisis of Bengali masculinity and loss of political andeconomic power soon developed into a full-blown nationalistproject of critique of marriage and conjugal practices. Thelink between venereal diseases, conjugality and nationalhealth was however not natural but rather tenaciously drawn.Similar linkages have been made in scholarly studies done onother parts of India.105

While explaining the causes of racial weakness andBengali bhadralok’s susceptibility to diseases, medical writersdeclared that Bengali constitution was essentially differentfrom European constitution. Therapeutic practices have totake into consideration such essential differences betweenraces (jati), keeping in mind cultural practices, dietary habits,intellectual capacity and religious disposition of a particularjati.106 That is why the plague measures introduced in India



since 1896 did not work; since quarantine measures werebased on universal principles, i.e. isolating a person from hisor her loved ones. Such measures might have worked forEurope, but in a country like India where a wife happilyimmolates herself in her husband’s funeral pyre, isolating adying man from his wife and a child from his mother, wouldspell disaster. What makes one jati essentially different fromanother one depends on two set of factors: environmental andcultural. Environmental factors such as climate andtemperature cannot be changed and hence are resistant tohuman intervention. However cultural factors depend onhuman intervention and can be changed by changing thesocial law that governs such cultural practices. The writernoted at least seven areas where immediate change wasnecessary in order to revive the bodily health of a nation(jatiyadaihikpunarujjiban).107 One should note here that bodyis then understood in cultural terms not susceptible touniversal laws of nature. Of all the areas of improvement,conjugality was deemed as the most important area whereimmediate change was needed. Medical writers thereforepondered upon Hindu conjugal practices in a bid to find outthe reasons for Bengali bhadralok’s racial degeneration.

The debates were occasioned by two back-to-backincidents that took place in the closing decades of the 19th

century: one was the gruesome death of a child wife namedPhulmoni in 1889 by her middle-aged husband on herwedding night and the second was the nationalist outcry thatfollowed the passage of Age of Consent Bill into an Act in1891, which raised the age of cohabitation within andoutside marriage from 10 to 12.108 In the massive petitioncampaign that followed, the orthodox Hindu communityclaimed that it violated one of the fundamental sacramentalrituals of the Hindus, namely the garbhandhan ceremony orthe ritual cohabitation of Hindu girls once her menstrualcycle had begun. Bengali medical writers took thisopportunity to link conjugal practices to a larger discourse of

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racial weakness and Bengali effeminacy. Feminist scholars whohave studied the controversy surrounding the Age of ConsentAct have rightly demonstrated how the colonial lawreconstituted women as legal subjects thereby not onlydisplacing her from her previous position as an object ofcommunitarian control but infusing them with a sense of‘entitlement’ if not full-fledged rights.109 Others have notedhow women became objects of modern medical knowledgethrough scientific discussions on menarche and menstruationin vernacular print.110 In the final part I want to bring intofocus the scientific debates and discussions occurring withinthe field of vernacular print, that sought to draw connectionsbetween notions of Bengali-Hindu conjugality andpathologies of modern Bengali selfhood in the articulation ofnational health.

The grounding of marriage within a sound scientific logicdelinked pleasure from marriage and hinged it withreproductive necessity. Medical writers and manualists didthis by a strategic deployment of a number of metaphors,allusions and analogies. One such scientific trope was tofrequently draw parallels from the animal world in order toestablish scientificity of their claim. In an article entitledJatiya Daihik Punarujjiban, the writer suggested that animalsindulge in sex only with the aim of reproduction.111 If a maleapproaches a female outside the mating season he is not onlyrejected but also hurt. Thus the law of nature(ishwaradishtaniyam) entails that in lower orders of animals,coitus is geared towards the singular aim of reproduction andnot pleasure. That pleasure was not the aim of coitus was inturn proved by two points: Firstly after the act, everybodyfeels disgusted. As such if at the commencement of the act,there was no pleasure then no one would have had theincentive to indulge in it. Secondly, that coitus was not theonly biological function of humans is proved by the fact thatgenerative organs in male and sometimes in female arelocated outside the body unlike more important organs like



brain, lungs, heart, spleen, kidneys and intestines which areensconced within the deep recesses of the body. Furtheranimals whose generative organs are cut off such as in goats,bulls etc. are more virile than their sexually functionalcounterparts. In humans, the khojas and the eunuchs whoused to guard the Mughal harem were also extremelypowerful. Thus the only aim of marriage should bepropagation of species, deviation from which would lead toall sorts of maladies.

The braiding of conjugality with reproductive logic ledto other anxieties about waste of spermatic fluid for otherpurposes: coitus with prostitutes and masturbation. Inanother longish article entitled, Deshiya Swasthya Bigyan:Abhigaman ba Stri-Purush Samsarga, the writer putsmasturbation and the vice of prostitution on the same plane,on the logic that although prostitution leads to depletion offortunes and that of health through venereal diseases,masturbation is no less dangerous.112 While sex withprostitutes leads to venereal diseases, masturbation leads todegeneration of the body and the mind and a host ofdiseases: it renders the body weak, causes various kinds ofprameha rog, nocturnal emissions, retention problems,thinning of sperm, headache and insanity, lack of memorisingability, degeneration of penis, impotence, dark circles,constipation and even jakshya rog. The author therefore listedan entire range of diseases related to masturbation whichincluded prameha. In his somatic order, real and perceiveddiseases emerged from a singular cultural vision of the body,which sees it as a closed system of energy with fluids goingin and coming out, and bodily health being based on adelicate balance of fluids.

Although in humoural understanding body fluids such assemen, menstrual blood and mother’s milk have highmetaphorical and ritual values, in the 19th century seminalanxieties got a fresh lease of life and were linked to thechanges occurring in the sphere of colonial political economy.

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The rise of the new order of manliness in Euro-Americansociety is said to be triggered off by the forces of industrialcapitalism, which led to the waning of the landed aristocracyand the rise of the professional and commercial middle-classthat mainly derived their income from commerce and paidservices. This in turn forged a new idea of a Homo Economicus(economic man) that valued physical labour, individual self-interest and productivity rather than leisure, communitarianinterests and intellectual pursuits.113 This new idea of aneconomic man in turn inspired a new understanding of malebody that saw it as one functioning in a spermatic economy.Body was therefore a closed system of energy, the well-beingof which depended on de-limiting the expenditure of semen.In many medico-moral writings of 19th century Bengal we seea similar masculine anxiety of the new Bengali middle-class.By the 1880s, excessive subinfeudation, rack-rent andfragmentation of landholding have turned land into anunprofitable enterprise. Bengali encounter with commercetoo has not worked well and all commercial activities came toa grinding halt by the 1840s.114 Bengalis therefore clungtenaciously to whatever English education and governmentalservices had to offer. The new professional middle-classtherefore found the lifestyle of the earlier gentry associatedwith the vices of prostitution, sexual indulgence and idlesedentary lifestyle based on hereditary privilege to beextremely offensive. In an essay entitled, Dhani Log SantanLabhe Banchita Keno?, the writer seems to equate moral andmaterial degradation of the Bengalis as a jati with the sexualdebauchery of the gentry class and extolls the working classmale as the virile other.115 He notes that since the rich manwastes his sperm (sukradhatu) through excessive indulgence inprostitution and rarely takes part in physical labour, he is notable to produce children because of his wastefulness. On theother hand, poor working class people despite appallingliving conditions and inadequate diet are blessed with severalchildren. Although their vegetarian diet cannot match up to



the rich protein-based diet of the richer classes, food thatthey partake is not transformed successfully into semenbecause they continue to deplete it by overindulgence incoitus. Their diet which, according to the author, is rich inkapha does not produce all dhatus adequately; rather it onlyseems to increase meda (fat) dhatu.

Seminal anxiety was thus couched within a larger fear ofdegeneration of the Bengali race, particularly its inadequacyto produce healthy off springs. Such debates reached theirapogee at a time when census reports, reports on sanitarystate of the city and its suburbs and health reports werebeing circulated in the public sphere. As news of rising andfalling populations, epidemics and sexes made their way intothe public domain; medico-moral writers often used numbersto project their racial and communal fears. In a short essaycalled Banglar Loksamkhya, the writer noted:

Another issue of anxiety is that Muslims areincreasing vis-à-vis the Hindus. Hindus 18100438,Muslims 17609135. Hindus are only 5 lakh morethan the Muslims. There are many reasons whyMuslim families grow more than Hindus. Who cantell that in future India would not be turned into aMuslim country (desh)?116

Congenital diseases, particularly those like prameha andupadangsha, were blamed for weak offsprings. One writerclaimed that venereal disease can affect a race for two, threeor four generations.117 Almost eighty percent of Bengalis wereafflicted with venereal poison. Another writer claimed thatdue to prameha and upadangsha and other diseases of thedhatu, the female womb is polluted forever and the woman isdenied a child.118 Men having congenital diseases were askednot to marry, while fathers of brides were asked to find outwhether their prospective son-in-laws were suffering fromdiseases related to abuses of mercury.119

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Conclusion

The birth of modern medicine in Bengal followed the twinprocesses of professionalisation of indigenous medicine andvernacularisation of western medical knowledge. While withthe establishment of CMC and with the introduction ofwestern medical learning the demise of indigenous medicalknowledges seemed imminent, at the ground level, theopening up of market forces entailed survival of older medicalknowledges and thriving of indigenous practitioners ofmedicine. Colonial medical knowledge had to take intoaccount indigenous understanding of physiology, pathologyand therapeutics, while the colonial state itself helped tosustain a thriving medical market of vernacular print andmedicine. This paper traced the history of such processes bylooking at three different yet interconnected sites: thedispensary, the space of vernacular print and the market fordrugs in reference to treatments available for VD. Themedical market was littered with indigenous dispensariesselling medicines that claimed to cure a wide range of diseaseswhile a thriving print market ensured that medicalknowledge reached far and wide. Books on specific diseases,especially those on venereal diseases, claimed a large chunk ofthe total amount of printed material. This medical literaturedrew eclectically from various medical sources and knowledgesystems. Further, rational systems of medicine often jostledwith folk wisdom, existing public knowledges and sharedcultural memory of diseases. This ensured the survival of analready existing cultural understanding of the disease. Thecase of VD amply demonstrates this point. Syphilis andGonorrhoea, two of the most popular varieties of VD, wereoften translated in popular medical domain as Upadangshaand Prameha. Both the categories had existed in the highHindu meta-medical understanding of Ayurveda. However inthe process of translation, western medical knowledge had tomediate through certain cultural notions attached to bodyand body fluids. These notions, which had remained alive



through shared cultural memory, got a fresh lease of life inthe late 19th century. VD was understood to be part of thespermatic economy which viewed body as a closed system ofenergy based on the delicate balance of body fluids. Fear ofsperm loss therefore was a part of the public discussion of theVD fed into the larger racial anxiety of Bengali effeteness andthe culture of excessive sexual indulgence associated with theBengali gentry whose social power was already on thedownswing in the late 19th century. Finally in the treatmentof VD too, the peddlers and manufacturers of indigenousdrugs walked a tightrope between abuses of the dubiouspractitioners of medicine and the rational alternative providedby western medicine. They therefore not only appropriatedcertain western medicines such as sarsaparilla but claimed itto be a part of their own medical legacy. Colonial medicine,far from hegemonising and relegating other medicalknowledges to the margins, was diffused in the plural medicalculture and sustained the late colonial medical market ofBengal.

Notes:

This paper was originally presented in a conference in JNU, entitled“Pathways in History: Exploring Connections across Space and Time”,from February 5th to 7th, 2014. I would like to thank all those who tooktime to pose questions. I would also like to thank the two anonymousreviewers of this paper for their useful suggestions.

1 The enclavist argument comes out most strongly in RadhikaRamasubban, “Imperial Health in British India, 1857-1900” in Disease,Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience ofEuropean Expansion, Roy Macleod and Milton Lewis, ed., Routledge,London, 1988.

2 The argument of colonial hegemony can be ascribed to the works ofDavid Arnold. See his Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and EpidemicDisease in Nineteenth Century India, University of California Press,Berkeley, 1993; idem The New Cambridge History of India III. 5: Science,Technology and Medicine in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 2002. All citations from Colonizing the Body refer to thisedition of the text.

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3 See for instance Roy Porter, Health for Sale : Quackery in England, 1660-1850, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1989; idem, Quacks:Fakers and Charlatans in English Medicine, Tempus Publishing,Gloucester, 2000; Helen M Dingwall, Physicians, Surgeons andApothecaries: Medicine in Seventeenth Century Edinburgh, Issue 1 ofScottish Historical Review Monograph Series, University of MichiganPress, Michigan, 1995; Irvine Loudon, Medical Care and the GeneralPractitioner, 1750-1850, Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1986;Susan C Lawrence, Charitable Knowledge: Hospital Pupils and Practitionersin Eighteenth Century London, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1996; Anne Digby, Making a Medical Living: Doctors and Patients in theEnglish Market for Medicine, 1720-1911, Cambridge University Press,1994; Kevin P Sienna, Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor:London’s “Foul Ward”, 1600-1800, University of Rochester Press, 2004.For the application of the term in Indian context refer to relevantfootnotes later.

4 Pratik Chakrabarti, “Medical Marketplaces beyond the West: BazaarMedicine, Trade and the English Establishment in Eighteenth CenturyIndia” in Medicine and the Market in England and its Colonies, c.1450-c.1850, op. cit. 2007: 196-215.

5 Projit Bihari Mukharji, Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market,Print and Daktari Medicine, Anthem Press, New York, 2009. All furthercitations refer to this edition of the text.

6 Madhuri Sharma, Indigenous and Western Medicine in Colonial India,Culture and Environment in South Asia, Foundation Books, New Delhi,2012 and Rachel Berger, Ayurveda Made Modern: Political Histories ofIndigenous Medicine in North India, 1900-1955, Cambridge Imperialand Post-colonial Studies Series, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2013.

7 Seema Alavi, “Unani Medicine in the Nineteenth-Century PublicSphere: Urdu Texts and Oudh Akbar”, Indian Economic and SocialHistory Review, March 2005, 42: 101-129.

8 Guy Attewell, Refiguring Unani Tibb: Plural Healing in Late ColonialIndia, New Perspectives in South Asian History, 17, New Delhi, OrientLongman, 2007.

9 David Arnold, op. cit. 1993 and 2002.

10 For a brief pre-colonial history of medical practices in India see DeepakKumar, “India (Chapter-28)” in Cambridge History of Science, 4, EighteenthCentury Science, Roy Porter ed., Cambridge University Press, 2003.

11 For a history of NMI and CMC see Poonam Bala, Imperialism andMedicine in Bengal: A Socio-Historical Perspective, Sage Publications, 1991



and Samita Sen and Anirban Das, “A History of the Calcutta MedicalCollege and Hospital, 1835-1936” in Uma Dasgupta ed., History ofScience, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, XV, 4, Science andModern India: An Institutional History, c 1784-c 1947, Center for Studiesin Civilizations, 2011.

12 For a history on English doctors in India see D. G. Crawford, AHistory of Indian Medical Service, 1600-1913, London, 1914 and fornative doctors or daktars see Projit Bihari Mukharji, op. cit. 2009,Introduction and Chapter 1.

13 On history of kaviraji practice and institutionalisation of Ayurveda seeBrahmananda Gupta, “Indigenous Medicine in Nineteenth andTwentieth Century Bengal” in Asian Medical Systems: A ComparativeStudy, Charles Leslie ed., University Of California Press, Berkeley, 1976.Also see Paul R Brass, “The Politics of Ayurvedic Education: A Case-study of Revivalism and Modernization in India” in Education and Politicsin India: Studies in Organization, Politics and Society, ed., S. HoeberRudolph and L.I. Rudolph, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,Massachusetts: 341-75.

14 Sumit Sarkar, ''Kaliyuga, Chakri and Bhakti: Ramakrishna and HisTimes'' in his Writing Social History, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,1997.

15 Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics ofLanguage and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905, OUP, NewDelhi, 2006.

16 Projit Bihari Mukharji, op cit., 2011.

17 Shinjini Das, Debating Scientific Medicine: Homeopathy and Allopathyin Late Nineteenth Century Medical Print in Bengal, Medical History,2012, 56 (4): 463-480.

18 For Hakimi see Seema Alavi, Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of anIndo-Muslim Medical Tradition, 1600-1900, Palgrave Macmillan, NewYork, 2008Guy Attewell, Refiguring Unani Tibb: Plural Healing in LateColonial India, 17 of New Perspectives in South Asian History, OrientBlackSwan, 2007 and Kavita Shivaramakrishnan, Old Potions, NewBottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab, Issue 12 of NewPerspectives in South Asian History, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi,2006. For Ayurveda see Madhuri Sharma, op cit.,2012 and RachelBerger, op cit., 2013.19 Poonam Bala20 Jatindramohan Bhattacharya ed., Bangla Mudrita Granthadir Talika,Vol-1, 1743-1852, A. Mukherjee, Calcutta, 1990.

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21 Jatindramohan Bhattacharya ed., Mudrita Bangla Granther Panji 1853-1867, Paschim Bangla Academy, Calcutta, 1993.22 On English medical writing see Irma Taavitsainenn and Päivi Pahta,Medical Writing in Early Modern English, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 201123 Lack of original vernacular works on medicine was a charge oftenlabeled against the Bengali writers. In an article written in Bengali medicaljournal Chikitsha Sammelani, the writer complained that except for worksby a few well known Bengali daktars like Bholanath Basu, UdaychandDutta and Annadacharan Khastagir, most of Bengali medical literaturewere translations of European works. See Jadunath Gangopadhyay,“Bangalar Chikitshak Samaj” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha BishayakMasik Patrika, Vol 6, 1889.24 For a general discussion on the different medical genres see Projit BihariMukharji, op cit., 2011. On VD see Mahendranath Ray, AllopathicPromeho, Dhatudaurbalyo O Upadongsho Chikitsha, Calcutta, 1906;Gyanendra Kumar Maitra, Rati Jantradir Pida, Calcutta, 1923;Hemchandra Sengupta, Indriyo Daurbalyo O Tahar Chikitsha, Calcutta,1923; Hara Chandra Sen, Venereal Diseases in Bengali, Calcutta, 1881;Jogendra Chandra Ray and Manmathanath Sengupta, JananendriyaChikitsha, 1892; Rajendralal Sur, Promeho O Upodongsho Pidar Chikitsha,Calcutta, 1916; idem, Treatment of Gonorrhoea and Venereal Diseases,1924 and Mahendra Chandra Bhattacharya, Janandriyer Pida, Calcutta,1917.25 On the debate on terminologies see Binaybhushan Ray, Unish ShatakerBanglay Bigyan Sadhana, Calcutta, 1987.26 See Hara Chandra Sen, op cit., 1881. For Chandra Kanth Karmakarsee Report on the Charitable Dispensaries under the GOB for the year 1868.Appendix B, No- 32 of Medical Proceedings of GOB/January 1870/NO-31-33/W.B.S.A.27 Kaviraj Binodlal Sen, Ayurvediya Dravyabidhan, Calcutta, 1876 andHaralal Gupta, Ayurved Bhashabidhan, Calcutta, 1888.28 See subscription list of subscribers in Chikitsha Sammelani, ChikitshaBishayak Masik Patrika, 3, 1887; 4, 1888; 5, 1889; 6, 1889 etc.29 Excerpted from Poonam Bala, op cit., 1991.30 Sachindranath Chakrabarty, Saral Totka Chikitsha, Calcutta, n.d. Alsosee recipes of totka or mushtijog published in various issues of ChikitshaSammelani etc.31 Adiswar Bhattacharya, Chatraganer Naitik Abasthya O Tahar Pratikar,Calcutta, 1918.



32 Nafar Chandra Dutta, Sachitra Sahaj Daktari Siksha, Calcutta, 1905.33 Harinath Ghosh, Dampatyalila, Calcutta, 1919; Suryanarayan Ghosh,Baigyanik Dampatya Pranali, Dacca, 1884; Kedarnath Sarkar,Rituraksha, Calcutta, 1892 and Annadacharan Khastagir, NabaprasutaSiksha and Stri Jatir Byadhi Samgraha, Calcutta, 1878 (2nd ed).34 Advertisement of J. Ghosh & Co in Nutan Panjika (details unknown)in Sripantha, Bottola, Ananada Publishers, 1974.35 Shantiram Dey, Nagabhatta Birochito Kamratna, Calcutta, 1905.36 Projit Bihari Mukharji, “Lokman, Chholeman and Manikpir: MultipleFrames of Institutionalizing Islamic Medicine in Modern Bengal” in SocialHistory of Medicine, 24, 3: 720-738.37 Sukumar Sen, Bottolar Chapa O Chobi, Ananada Publishers, Calcutta,1984.38 Sri Abul Kasem, Chahi Asal Ajaeb Cholemani, Azimi Press of SriWallilulah Sahib, Dacca, 1917; Maulvi Hakim Abdus Sobhan, Elaj-e-Fokara, Azimi Press of Sri Wallilullah Matwalli Chowk Masjid, Dacca,1921 and Hakim Muhammad Moyazzem Ali, Chohi Elaj-e-Lokman OFaoyayede Jichhmani, Azimi Press Sri Walillulah Matwalli Chowk Masjid,Dacca, 192139 Ali Ahmed, Hakimi Chikitsha, Dacca, BS 1333/1926, preface.40 Hakim Muhammad Moyazzem Ali, op cit., 1921, preface.41 Maulvi Hakim, Abdus Sobhan, Elaj-e-Fokara, op cit., 1921.42 Sri Abul Kasem, Chahi Asal Ajaeb Cholemani, op cit., 1917.43 Hara Chandra Sen, Venereal Diseases in Bengali, Calcutta, 1881.44 Mahendranath Ray, Allopathic Promeho, Dhatudaurbalyo O UpadongshoChikitsha, Calcutta, 1906.45 Ibid. Sri Abul Kasem, Chahi Asal Ajaeb Cholemani, op cit., 1917.46 Although professionalisation and institutionalisation of medicine havereceived scholarly attention both in India and abroad, histories ofpharmaceutical industry are sadly lacking. A current project is beingundertaken by Nandini Bhattacharya, University of Dundee which seeksto trace the history of drug making in India in a systematic fashion. Seeher Between Bazaar and Bench: The Making of the Indian Drugs Market(Paper presented at SOAS, South Asia History Seminar Series, 2013).

47 Jadunath Gangopadhyay in his essay in Chikitsha Sammelani accusedthat due to the extremely high visitation fees of the daktars and thekavirajes, people in villages and mofussil towns often go into debts

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paying their fees. Visitation fees combined with high prices of patentedmedicine and conveyance charges (i.e. paying for the palki bearers) take atoll on poor and middle class patients and their families who often pay ininstallments and refuse to pay the entire price for the medicine.SeeJadunath Gangopadhyay, “Bangalar Chikitshak Samaj” in ChikitshaSammelani, Chikitsha Bishayak Masik Patrika, Vol-6, 1889.

48 On the history of panjikas see Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print, op cit.,2006; Sripantha, Bottola, 1974, Gautam Bhadra, Nyara Bottolaye JayeKobar?, Chatim Books, Calcutta, 2011 and ibid, “Pictures in Celestialand Worldly Time: Illustrations in the Nineteenth Century BengaliAlmanacs” in Bodhisattva Kar, Partha Chatterjee and Tapati GuhaThakurta ed., New Cultural Histories of India, OUP, New Delhi, 2014.

49 Gautam Bhadra in his study of advertisements of Bengali books, pointsout that Bigyapon (the Bengali word for advertisement) had a broaderconnotation than its English counterpart. Bengali Bigyapon ran for pagesbefore the actual text of the panjikas started. Sometimes they ran fortwenty pages or more, had their own page number, different font sizeand sometimes a different page colour than the actual text. Theseadvertisements therefore constituted an autonomous textual space with itsown textual logic. See Gautam Bhadra, Nyara Bottolaye Jaye Kobar?, opcit, 2011.

50 Report on the Charitable Dispensaries under the GOB for the year 1874by J Fullerton Beatson, Esq., M.D., Surgeon General, Indian MedicalDept., 1875/Appendix A, File No- 114 in the Medical Proceedings ofGOB/February 1876/No -114/W.B.S.A.

51 Report of the Committee on the supply of Drugs in India (1875) in theProceedings of Lt. Gov. of Bengal/General Dept./Medical Branch/March1873/No-31-32/W.B.S.A.

52 Ibid.

53 Report on the Charitable Dispensaries of GOB for the year 1875 by JFullerton Beatson, Esq., M.D., Surgeon General, Indian MedicalDepartment. Appendix E/File No-36-37 in the Medical Proceedings ofGOB/ January 1877/No- 36-39/W.B.S.A. Also see Report on theCharitable Dispensaries of GOB for the year 1877 by James Irving.Appendix A/File No- 9-44/45 in the Medical Proceedings of GOB /February 1879/No-44-47/W.B.S.A.

54 Report of the Committee on the supply of Drugs in India (1875) in theProceedings of Lt. Gov. of Bengal/General Dept./Medical Branch/March1873/No-31-32/W.B.S.A

55 Letter No 3523 dated 28th October, 1875, from R.L. Mangles, Esq.,



Officiating Secretary to the GOB to the Surgeon General Indian MedicalDepartment in Proceedings of Lt. Gov. of Bengal/General Department/Medical Branch/February 1876/No-1-3/W.B.S.A.

56 For an excellent study on the medical history of VD in the west see,Judith Forrai, “History of Different Therapeutics of Venereal DiseaseBefore the Discovery of Penicillin” in Syphilis: Recognition, Description andDiagnosis, Dr. Neuza Satomi Sato ed., 2011.

57 Ibid: 46-48.

58 Ibid.

59 On Raskarpur see “List of Poisons Procurable in Indian Bazaars(Complied from the Works of O’ Shaughnessy, Royle, Fleming,Piddington, Honigberger &c and from Chemical Examiner’s Report)” inDr. Norman Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for Bengal andNorth Western Provinces, Military Orphan Press, Calcutta, 1856: 583.

60 See for instance Sri Madhab Chandra Saha Kaviraj, Garmi O PromehoRoger Chikitsha Pronali, Dacca, 1876.

61 Dr. Norman Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, op cit., 1856:64-200.

62 Ibid.: 69.

63 Ibid.: 64-200.

64 Ibid.: 158-161.

65 Dr. Norman Chevers, A Commentary on the Diseases of India, J & AChurchill, London, 1896: 325- 329.

66 Ibid.: 329.

67 "A Case of Mercurial Poisoning” in Indian Medical Gazette, 1876.

68 Report on the Charitable Dispensaries under GOB for the year 1868.Appendix B/No-32 of the Medical Proceedings of GOB/January 1870/W.B.S.A.

69 Half Yearly Report of Patna Charitable Dispensary (1866) in Report onthe Charitable Dispensaries under GOB for the year 1866. Appendix A/No-29-30 of the Medical Proceedings of GOB/February 1868/ No-29/W.B.S.A.70 Seema Alavi, op cit., 2008 and Kavita Shivaramakrishnan, op cit.,2006.71 Whitelaw Ainslie, Materia Indica or Some Account of those Articles whichare Employed by the Hindoos and Other Eastern Nations in their Medicine,

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Arts and Agriculture Comprising also Formulae with Practical Observations ,Names of Diseases in Various Eastern Languages and a Copious List ofOriental Books Immediately Connected with General Science &c. &c.,Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1826 and W.B. O’Shaughnessy, Bengal Pharmacopeia and General Conspectus of MedicinalPlants, Bishop, London, 1844.72 Especially see letter dated 4th October, 1866 from R.F. Thompson, CivilAssistant Surgeon of Hugli to the Deputy Inspector General of hospitals,Barrackpore in Report on the Charitable Dispensaries under GOB for theyear 1866. Appendix A of No-29/30 of the Medical Proceedings ofGOB/February 1868/No-29/W.B.S.A. Also see Report on the CharitableDispensaries under the GOB for the year 1868. Appendix B of No-32 ofthe Medical Proceedings of GOB/January 1870/Nos-31-33/W.B.S.A.Thompson gave a recipe for Gonorrhoea used in his dispensary:Gokheroo leaves 3ii, Ginger bruised 3ii and Cold water 0i. InChamparan dispensary, the native doctor gave recipe for syphilis: Mudar15 parts, Afeem 2 parts, Raskarpur 4 parts, Soonta 10 parts and PotassiumSulphate 100 parts. Divide into two powders. One for a dose.73 Extract of the Annual Report of Hugli Emambarah Hospital for theyear 1867 in Report of the charitable dispensaries under GOB for the year1867. Appendix A of No-35 of the Medical Proceedings of GOB/January 1869/No-35/W.B.S.A.74 Ibid.75 Anoop Austin, “A Review on Indian Sarsaparilla, Hemidesmus Indicus”in Journal of Biological Sciences 8(1): 1-2, 2008.76 See for example, Mahendranath Ray, Allopathic Promeho,Dhatudaurbalyo O Upadongsho Chikitsha, Calcutta, 1906.77 Md. Sahadat Hossan et al, “Traditional Use of Medicinal Plants inBangladesh to Treat Urinary Tract Infection and Sexually TransmittedDiseases” in Ethno Botany Research & Application, 8:061-074, 2010.78 http://www.ayurveda-recipes.com/anantamul.html79 "Advertisement of S.C. Mukharji & Co, Deshiya Aushadalaya” inNutan Panjika, Calcutta, 1898-99.80 "Advertisement of HDM & Co’s Patent Aushadalaya” in NutanPanjika, Calcutta, 1896-97.81 "Advertisement of B. Brothers & Co’s Kolkata Patent Aushadalaya” inNutan Panjika, Calcutta, 1896-97.82 "Advertisement of Muhammad Abdul Rab” in Brihat MohammadiyaPanjika, Calcutta, 1318 BS. Also see “Advertisement of K.D.Sarkar’s



Non-Mercurial Pills for Syphilis” in Amrita Bazaar Patrika, November18th, 1901.83 "Advertisement of H.D. Nandan & Co” in Nutan Panjika, Calcutta,1898-99.84 G.C. Cook, Tropical Medicine: An Illustrated History of the Pioneers,Academic Press, London, 2007.85 On the history of Syphilis see Johannes Fabricius, Syphilis inShakespeare’s England, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 1994 (forEngland); Claude Quetel, History of Syphilis, Wiley Publishers, 1992 (forFrance); Linda E. Merians ed. The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease inEighteenth Century France and England, University of Kentucky Press,1996 (for England and France); Laura J. Mcgough, Gender, Sexuality andSyphilis in Early Modern Venice: The Diseases that came to stay, PalgraveMacmillan, New York, 2010 (for Italy).86 See Girolamo Fracastoro, Hieronymi Fracastorii Syphilis Sive MorbusGallicus, Bebel, 1536.87 However in the statistical records attached to the reports of lockhospitals and dispensaries, we do see a distinction being made betweenGonorrhoea and Syphilis and yet we come across several instances wherewomen were kept confined in lock hospitals because the doctors were notsure whether the discharges were menstrual or due to some infection. Onmedical practices within the lock hospitals see Chapter 2 of this volume.88 Edmund A Parkes, A Manual of Practical Hygiene Prepared Especially forUse in the Medical Service of the Army, John Churchill & Sons, London,MDCCCLXVI, p-468 (Emphasis mine)89 Judith Forrai, “History of Different Therapeutics of Venereal DiseaseBefore the Discovery of Penicillin”, op cit., 201190 T.A. Wise, Commentary on the Hindu System of Medicine, Trübner & Co,1860, pp.-375- 379. All further citations refer to this edition of the text.91 A Dictionary of the Principal Languages Spoken in the Bengal Presidency, viz.English, Bangali and Hindustani in the Roman Character with Walker’sPronunciation of all the Difficult or Doubtful English Words, Calcutta, 1837.92 T.A.Wise, Commentary, op cit., 1860: 375-379.93 Ibid94 The diseases are Udakameha (watery discharges without any sediment);Ekhyumeha (sugar-cane juice like colour of the urine); Sandrameha (thickdischarges); Pishtameha (urine has copious white powder); Sukrameha(urine has the colour of semen and appears to be mixed with it);Sikatameha (urine lets fall a hard deposit); Swetameha (sweet and cold

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secretion with urine); Shanairmeha (frequent urine in small quantities);Lalameha (urine is red in colour); Kharmeha (urine has the taste, colour andtouch of potash); Nilameha (blue coloured urine); Haridameha (yellowcoloured urine); Manjisthameha (urine has the smell of indigested food);Raktameha (urine is blood red in colour); Basameha (urine with fatdeposits); Kandrameha (urine is astringent and sweet to taste) andHastimeha (involuntary discharge of urine, lack of continence). See Wise,op cit., 1860: 359-364.95 Loss of semen as a part of prameha disease is only marginal and notcentral to the symptomology of prameha. See Wise, op cit., 1860: 360.96 On the value of semen see Wise, op cit., 1860 and J. Filliozat, TheClassical Doctrine of Indian Medicine : Its Origins and its Greek Prallels,Munshiramram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1964 (First English Edition).97 Sri Madhab Chandra Saha Kaviraj, Garmi O Promeho Roger ChikitshaPronali, Dacca, 1876.98 Har Charan Sen, Venereal Diseases in Bengali, Calcutta, 1881.99 Hem Chandra Sengupta, Indriyo Daurbalyo O Tahar Chikitsha,Calcutta, 1923.100 Anonymous, Dhatu Daurbalyo (translation of Dr. Alvin E Small’sDecline of Manhood), Calcutta, BS 1304.101 Har Charan Sen, op cit.: 2-3.102 Dr. Sri Mahendranath Sen, Allopathic Dhatudaurbalyo O UpadangshaPidar Chikitsha, op cit., 1906.103 Sri Chandrakanta Chakravarty, Samkramak Rog, Calcutta, 1924.104 On north India see Charu Gupta, Sexuality, Obscenity and Community:Women, Muslims and the Hindu Public in Colonial India, OrientBlackSwan, New Delhi, 2005. On western India, see Doulas E Haynes,“Selling Masculinity: Advertisements for Sex Tonics and the Making ofModern Conjugality in Western India, 1900-1945”, Journal of SouthAsian Studies, 35, 4, 2012.105 Anonymous, “Jatiya Swasthya”, in Swasthya, Aghrayan, 1306 BS/1899.106 Dr. Annadacharan Khatagir and Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna,“Jaitya Daihik Punarujjiban” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha BishayakMasik Patrika, Baishak, 1292/1885.107 On Age of Consent see Tanika Sarkar, “A Prehistory of Rights: The Ageof Consent Debate in Colonial Bengal”, Feminist Studies, 26 (3), Autumn,2000; idem, “Rhetoric Against Age of Consent: Resisting Colonial Reasonand Death of a Child Wife”, Economic and Political Weekly, XXVIII, 36,April 3, 1993 and Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly



Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century,Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995, Chapter 4.108 Sarkar, “A Prehistory of Rights: The Age of Consent Debate inColonial Bengal” op cit., 2000.109 Ishita Pande, Medicine, Race and Liberalism in British Bengal: Symptomsof Empire, Routledge studies in South Asian History, New York, 2010;idem, “Phulmoni’s Body: The Autopsy, The Inquest and the HumanitarianNarrative on Child Rape in India”, South Asian History and Culture, 2013,4 (1), 9-30 and Jyoti Puri, Woman, Body, Desire in Post-Colonial India:Narratives of Gender and Sexuality, Routledge, New York, 1999.110 Dr. Annadacharan Khatagir and Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna,“Jaitya Daihik Punarujjiban” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha BishayakMasik Patrika, Baishak, 1292 BS/1885.111 Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna, “Deshiya Swasthya Bigyan:Abhigaman Ba Stri Purush Samsarga” in Chikitsha Sammelani, ChikitshaBishayak Masik Patrika, 1292 BS/1885.112 On the Victorian middle class and masculinity see Herbert L.Sussman, Masculine Identities: Histories and Meanings of Manliness, ABC-CLIO, 2012, Chapter 4.113 For a discussion on the changing material conditions of the Bengalimiddle class see Chapter 3 of this book.114 Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna, “Dhani Log Santan LabheBanchita Keno” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha Bhishayak MasikPatrika, 1293 BS/1886.115 Anonymous, “Banglar Loksamkhya”, Nababarshiki, 1287 BS/1880.116 Dr. Annadacharan Khatagir and Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna,“Jaitya Daihik Punarujjiban” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha BishayakMasik Patrika, Baishak, 1292 BS/1885.117 Kaviraj Abinash Chandra Kaviratna, “Purush Bondhyo, Ki StriBondhya” in Chikitsha Sammelani, Chikitsha Bishayak Masik Patrika, Vol4, Issues 2&3, 1294 BS/1887.118 Anonymous, “Bibahapon O Swasthya” in Swasthya, Aswin-Kartik,1308 BS/1901.

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