The genesis of hospital medicine in India: The Calcutta Medical College (CMC) and the emergence of a new medical epistemology

The history of the Calcutta Medical College (CMC) is intertwined with the rise of hospital medicine and modern medical pedagogy in India. This article will argue that the extension of medicinal practice in India ushered in a new paradigm of knowledge: the singular act of cadaveric dissection introduced indelible changes in the perception of the body and disease. The CMC was constituted by an ensemble of different components—medical teaching at University College London (UCL), the unique surgical practices of the Company’s surgeons and the specificity of a uniquely ‘colonial’ praxis. The transition from military medical training to general medical education involved various processes of acculturation—visual, verbal and psychological. CMC played a key role in the materialisation of public health programmes in colonial India. Consequently, Ayurvedics were caught in a position of simultaneously being ‘modern’ as well as ‘original’. As a result of the interactive process, the western medical toolkit reconstituted the terminologies and practice of Ayurveda so that, epistemologically speaking, they became a variant of modern medicine.