Surgical Instruments of Indian “oculists”
Leo Weiß (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
The Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine in Leipzig houses a collection of Indian surgical Instruments that were donated between 1907 and 1913 by the Indologist A.F. Rudolf Hoernle. This presentation deals with a part of this collection that supposedly belonged to “two practicing Indian oculists from Benares” and its provenance.
According to the Indian Medical Service doctors writing about these practitioners, they were commonly called suttiah or vaidya and were hereditary practitioners who almost exclusively practiced the couching of cataract. Unfortunately, there seem to be no texts by these practitioners themselves. How the practices and instruments of these oculists relate to classical works of Indian Medicine like the Suśrutasaṃhitā is still an open question that requires further discussion. Some preliminary aspects of the topic will be explored during the presentation and I would greatly welcome further discussion on this subject afterwards.
While there are no written sources by these oculists their instruments have been collected both at the KSI as well as in various UK collections. I will therefore try to develop a closer understanding of these so called ‘oculists’ by examining their instruments. It is noteworthy that the instruments contain not only ones that were used for couching, but also for other medical procedures unrelated to ophthalmics. Furthermore, a significant number of Instruments are quite evidently from western manufacture, hinting at a complex entanglement between colonial and indigenous practices of healing.
Unfortunately, there are no textual sources written by these oculists, who, according to the colonial discourse about them, were largely illiterate. The primary textual source on these subaltern health practitioners are publications by Indian Medical Service doctors, who viewed them as both unwanted competition as well as a public health hazard.