Abstract

My ongoing doctoral research is on the history of integrative medicine in India, particularly the nexus between Ayurveda and biomedicine in the twentieth century, with a focus on knowledge and practice within both medical systems. I examine the cultures of medical practice by focusing on the narratives of people practicing medicine. The paper I wish to present examines how biography in the context of Indian doctors trained in biomedicine or Ayurveda braids in other narratives – narratives of learning and narratives of practices into the life story . Written in Malayalam, these autobiographies demonstrate culturally unique attitudes towards medicine and deserves attention and theorisation. They reveal peculiar interlinkages between medicine and the body, through situated practices and habitations, that practitioners of medicine reflect upon. In the words of Dr. PKR Warrier (2009), “a surgeon requires the gentle touch of a woman, far-sightedness of an eagle, the heart of a lion and moreover, an infinite measure of humanity.”1 Through autobiographies of doctors which reveal such epiphanies, I will demonstrate how the teaching and training of modern biomedicine in the beginning of 20th century occurred through the translation of diseases into culturally understandable concepts, using folk and classical tropes and critical socio-political events within public memory. This way of teaching and learning, through translation had also widened the scope of understanding different systems of medicine. As a result, the doctors, although trained in biomedicine, often speak of a body of medicine which is indigenous, local, and often radically non-western. I believe that their experiences, never before examined, will form a helpful contribution towards multilingual, transnational and translational practices within medical humanities, and the cross-boundary investigations this conference is keen on.