Coming to terms with the native practitioner: Indigenous doctors in colonial service in South India, 1800–25

Abstract

This article explores the engagements between the colonial state and indigenous medical practitioners in the Madras Presidency in the early nineteenth century; a period characterised by openness and ambiguous relations. An analysis of textual representations of the ‘native practitioner’ reveals ambiguity. Often the practitioners were portrayed as representing flawed systems of knowledge, yet possessing valuable insight into specific medical practices. Texts written for internal administrative purposes tended, however, to view the native practitioner more as a resource for the colonial state than a representative of worthless bodies of knowledge. Turning to actual engagements with native practitioners a varied, context-sensitive picture emerges. In connection with the campaign to prevent smallpox, the native practitioner was envisaged as both a self-interested entrepreneur and a zealous bureaucratic servant. When an epidemic fever struck the southern part of the Presidency, it was suggested that the colonial authorities continue a pre-colonial practice and distribute native practitioners in the villages through grants in revenue. Finally, when cholera struck dramatically in south India from 1818 the colonial authorities resorted to extensive hiring of practitioners on a short-term basis. The variety of ways in which the colonial authorities came to terms with the native practitioner—from mainly dismissive accounts to praise of their usefulness in specific disease control—reminds us that we need to differentiate our understanding of the colonial encounter not only according to time and place but also according to administrative context.