| Dr. Jai Maharaj 2005-09-24, 2:19 pm |
| 'West has always benefited from Indian medicine'
Panaji (IANS) - If you thought the benefits of medicine
flowed into India via a one-way street, American researcher
Timothy Walker would like to convince you that is not the
case. This researcher of early European colonial history
is currently scouring the archives of Goa to show how
Indian medicine influenced the West.
"Indian medicine's influence on Portugal was fairly wide.
You had echoes of Indian or ayurvedic practices that come
into Portuguese usage. And you can see those echoes
reflected in the medicines that Portuguese physicians and
surgeons are supplying and prescribing for patients in
Indian hospitals and infirmaries," Walker said.
What got him particularly interested is the differences
between "popular" and "university trained" medicine. "For
my doctoral program, I focused on early modern Europe and
colonial America. My dissertation work was on Portugal in
the 17th and 18th century. I looked at how popular
medicine was being oppressed by licensed physicians and
surgeons," he says.
In turn, he got led to India "because at that time a lot
of the medicines coming out of India were being shipped
to Portugal." Finally, he began looking how Indian
medicine influenced European medicine, via Portugal - the
earliest European colonial power in Asia.
Goa has one of the richest archives of early colonial
history, because the Portuguese settled here in the early
16th century. Walker is locating interesting examples of
drugs that were shipped out to Portugal in early colonial
times.
Indian influences are also noticeable in drugs in
Portuguese pharmacies. "You can see it (the influence of
Indian medicine on the west) thorough documentation from
the 17th and 18th century," says Walker.
Tamarind, for example, is a plant widely used in
ayurveda. It is applied in Portuguese hospitals. It is
used as a cooling agent, in combination with other
medicinal plants to help the absorption of those plants
and it is used in a poultice, placed on the skin.
Early Portuguese colonies in India proved to be the first
meeting grounds for the east and the west, particularly
Goa and the enclaves of Daman and Diu around the
coastline of present day Gujarat, he says.
There's a lot of scholarship in the west that speaks of
the way Western medicine was brought to the east, and of
how 'scientific' medicine was taught to Indian people.
But what is often not so strongly appreciated is how much
the West learnt from the east," he points out.
Walker says he has been able to locate documents that
show the extent of Portuguese buying medicines from local
merchants and traders. "So you have a lot of
opportunities for shared medical knowledge, which I don't
think was the same case with other colonial powers that
were in India at the time.
"In terms of documentation, you have a real gem here in
Panjim. He points out there were 12,000 to 15,000 volumes
of material that relatively are in very good condition.
It has been well preserved and well catalogued.
"This probably is the best source of documentation for
people who want to look at this whole question of the
West meeting the east specially in the early stages."
(IANS).
(source: http://www.timesofindia.com/300501/30indi34.htm)
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