“Not the Germ, It Is the Host”
Siddha Medicine in the Management of Infectious Fevers in Tamil Nadu
In: Asian MedicineSearch for other papers by V. Sujatha in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Global public health discourses tend to focus on the virus, its mutations, and the vaccine as the key factors relating to COVID. Asia, however, witnessed the rejuvenation of traditional medicine during the pandemic, and the improved outcomes of integrated protocols of traditional Asian medicine with biomedicine have been published. Based on fieldwork, telephone interviews, press reports, and institutional data collected during 2020–23, this paper highlights the role of Siddha medicine in the management of infectious fevers in Tamil Nadu. The most important question here is how a traditional system of medicine that does not have the germ theory of disease would deal with infectious fevers like COVID. The paper explains the “host-based” approach to infectious fevers found in contemporary Siddha medicine and its therapeutic rationale. It brings out how college-educated Siddha doctors create epistemological bridges between the traditional textual knowledge on fevers and the parameters of modern pathology, adding another dimension to the polymorphous trajectory of medical pluralism in India.
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“Not the Germ, It Is the Host”
Siddha Medicine in the Management of Infectious Fevers in Tamil Nadu
In: Asian MedicineSearch for other papers by V. Sujatha in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Global public health discourses tend to focus on the virus, its mutations, and the vaccine as the key factors relating to COVID. Asia, however, witnessed the rejuvenation of traditional medicine during the pandemic, and the improved outcomes of integrated protocols of traditional Asian medicine with biomedicine have been published. Based on fieldwork, telephone interviews, press reports, and institutional data collected during 2020–23, this paper highlights the role of Siddha medicine in the management of infectious fevers in Tamil Nadu. The most important question here is how a traditional system of medicine that does not have the germ theory of disease would deal with infectious fevers like COVID. The paper explains the “host-based” approach to infectious fevers found in contemporary Siddha medicine and its therapeutic rationale. It brings out how college-educated Siddha doctors create epistemological bridges between the traditional textual knowledge on fevers and the parameters of modern pathology, adding another dimension to the polymorphous trajectory of medical pluralism in India.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 231 | 231 | 31 |
| Full Text Views | 11 | 11 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 27 | 27 | 7 |
