Symptoms of Dis‐Ease: New Trends in the Histories of ‘Indigenous’ South Asian Medicines

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary historical scholarship on South Asia’s ‘indigenous’ medical traditions date from the mid‐1970s. It was not until the late 1990s, however, that this became a thriving area of historical research. As work in the area has grown exponentially over the past decade and a half, many of the older frameworks of analysis have been critiqued and modified. Most recent scholarship in the field clearly expresses symptoms of the dis‐ease with many of the well‐entrenched frameworks. This essay, by no means exhaustive, charts some of the major themes and approaches which have dominated the histories of ‘indigenous’ medicines in South Asia and signals the dis‐eases with them.