[Reader-list] Public health, and the hegemonisation of western scientific enterprise

[burton cleetus]

Public health, and the hegemonisation of western
scientific enterprise

The formulation of a public health policy with the
engagement of the Rockefeller foundation in complete
isolation to the indigenous medical practices was met
with resistance. A section of the indigenous medical
practitioners questioned the way in which entire
public health policy was carried forward. The arrival
of the foundation and the attempts to formulate a
Public health policy further brought to fore the
larger discourses that were generated in the wake of
western medical ideas and norms and its influence on
the indigenous medical practices. Marginalized by the
discourses on health and medicine and relegated by the
state, the proponents of indigenous medicine claimed
that indigenous medicine was capable of addressing the
diseases that were prevalent in Travancore. While, in
its modern contexts and the emergence of a new “public
sphere” accompanied by the generation of the notion of
public health, a large number of Vaidyans (indigenous
practitioners) claimed that they have discovered
‘drugs and methods of treatment for contagious
diseases that had become popular largely due to the
arrival of the print.

However, the state was of the view that Public health
was an entirely modern day phenomenon and did not fall
on the larger notion and discourses of Ayurveda. In
order to get state recognition, the proponents of
indigenous medicine had to prove that indigenous
medical practice, in the treatment of malaria,
conformed to the principles of western science. 

 In a letter addressed to the chief secretary to the
government Shankara Pillai, the principal of the
Ayurveda College, Trivandrum argued that modern
western methods of destroying the anopheles type of
mosquitoes as a preventive for Malaria appears to be
inefficacious, since they multiply by 200 times within
72 hours of their birth, particularly in a place like
Travancore, with plenty of vegetation and damp tracts,
facilitating their genesis and growth. The basic
argument was diseases are highly specific to the
ecology and hence medicines used for its elimination
are regionally specific. Quoting western scientists he
questioned the use of quinine and argued that it is
highly injurious to the body and weakens of the powers
of perception and hearing paleness and general
debility can affect the sense organs particularly the
eyes and the ears. 

Alike many other indigenous physicians of the time,
Shankara Pillai, claimed to have found out medicines
for the cure of malaria, filariasis, cholera, etc. He
submitted a proposal to the government, which he
claimed to be, based entirely on a standard formula in
Ayurvedic works and tried on malaria effected patients
which he claimed to be eminently successful.

While the indigenous medicine and its methods were not
based on the instrumentalist rationalist of western
science and the efficacy of its drugs was not proved
by clinical trials, proponents of indigenous medicine
based their claim to Sanskrit tradition of the past.
Shankara Pillai argued that even before the arrival of
English medicines, Ayurvedic physicians had knowledge
about Malaria as Vishajvaram and had treated it
efficiently. Thus tradition was used as a source of
strength in the defense of indigenous medicine against
western medicine.

The political and administrative authorities of the
Travancore state, convinced by the superiority of
western science, medicine and sanitary measures in
addressing the health needs of the state, ridiculed
the claims of the indigenous medical practitioners. 
The state demanded from the indigenous medical
practitioners to prove the credentials of the drugs
through the verification of its samples as the
scientific value of these preparations remained to be
ascertained. The chemical changes that take place in
omitting or adding one or more ingredients from a
group or standard formulae, the total caloric content
of the resulting product etc. cannot be gauged without
scientific trials and researches in a laboratory and
subjecting the proof on blood findings. The Ayurvedic
physician was also forced to prove his scientific
credentials through blood test, and to state the
composition of the compounds for the approval and
verification of facts by both the government and which
facts are essential for the approval of the government
as well as the public. The claimant was demanded to
prove the efficacy of the drugs by treating 12
different cases of malaria in a convenient building
within this town under the direct and immediate
supervision of the honorary director “at your own
expense”, the results being checked on blood findings
by the public health department. 

The government dismissed the claim on the ground,
since drugs consisting of toxins can only cure fevers
intermittent or not affecting or renders the blood of
a person inhospitable to malarial germs and the
specifics are prescribed to persons not attacked by
the disease. Shankara Pillai was asked to explain the
therapeutic activity as well as the composition of his
specifics.  The government argued that, mosquito
campaign is adopted by government as a measure to
prevent malaria, being fully aware of its genesis,
growth and the nature of the localities concerned. For
them quinine is a well-investigated drug, the
therapeutic activities of which including it’s after
effects are fully known to the scientific world.

Shankara Pillai in a counter response pointed out the
differences in the epistemic practices of western and
indigenous systems of medicine and argued that nowhere
in history, had Ayurvedic physicians cured Malaria and
the results had been proved through the testing of
blood samples. According to him as the basic
principles, which underlie both the streams are
different, it is not possible to prove the credibility
of a medical practice using the standards of the
other. 

Though the state argued public health to be an
entirely western phenomenon and indigenous medical
methods are insufficient to handle it, in the policy
of the award of the grant-in-aid the state gave
preference to those who have claimed to cure
contagious diseases. Detailed rules were prescribed
for the vaidyans to act according to the demands of
the state regarding sanitary and public health
measures. Grants were awarded to vaidyans who claimed
to have cured Malaria, Cholera and other diseases. In
the revised rules for the Grant in aid, in 1929 the
government instructed that the vaidyans were to
furnish the government with;

1.	Daily Cholera reports when the disease is prevalent
and cases treated daily. Annual return of sick treated
daily
2.	Annual return of the work of the institution 
3.	Annual returns of sick treated and of deaths from
cholera 
4.	 Annual report of the surgical operations
performed. 

Monthly returns of the sick treated every year were to
be sent by each Vaidyan so as to reach the
superintendent of Vaidyasalas by the 10th of every
succeeding month.

In response to the new government order the vaidyans
applying for the grant increasingly claimed that they
were efficient in treating malaria, dysentery and
cholera, and that they have eliminated the diseases in
the towns and has high attainments in the modern
developed Ayurvedic sciences alike in theory and
practice  

Burton





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