A Pharmacopeia for India: The Chemistry of Active Principles and Nationalism

Time: 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Free

Open to the public

The first Indian Pharmacopeia was published in 1955 after the establishment of the postcolonial nation-state. This was the culmination of a long movement for an Indian Pharmacopeia in nationalist medical and popular discourse in British India. This talk will discuss the debates around the formulation of an Indian Pharmacopeia, which presents peculiar problems for historians of medicine. Unlike in Western nations, which streamlined the profession of pharmacy and their pharmacopeia in the 19th century, there was no such process evident in colonial India. Although “bazaar medicines” were used extensively by European surgeons on the Indian subcontinent all through the 18th and 19th centuries, the official pharmacopeia remained the British Pharmacopeia. As a concession on the use of Indian and other non-European medical materials, and a campaign by a few Western-educated Indian medical men, the British Pharmacopeia (BP) published an addendum to its main pharmacopeia in 1901 that included 55 formulae from Indian medicines.

This led to a fierce debate on the legitimacy of an Indian Pharmacopeia that began in medical and public discourse in modern India. The issue at stake was the legitimacy of Indian systems of medicine, both Unani and Ayurvedic. Opponents to the pharmacopeia argued that until the active principles of all Ayurvedic medicines could be ascertained and their potencies standardized, an Indian Pharmacopeia could not be established. Those in favor countered that the British medical establishment used Indian drugs but denied the necessity for an Indian pharmacopeia in order to facilitate the import of British and American drugs within the Indian market. Thus the debate around the Indian pharmacopeia became a debate that blended chemistry with cultural nationalism. This talk will analyze the debate for an Indian Pharmacopeia in the context of nationalism, the search for legitimacy of indigenous medicine, and its place within the science of modern chemistry.

Nandini Bhattacharya is a historian of medicine and South Asian history. Her first monograph, Contagion and Enclaves: Tropical Medicine in Colonial India, was published in 2012. She is presently working on a WT-funded project, “A Coming of Age Story: The Histories of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Modern India.” She is also a 2015 Doan Fellow at CHF.

About Brown Bag Lectures

Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.

For more information, please call 215.873.8289 or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.