The Development of Modern Medicine in Non-Western Countries: Historical Perspectives

By discarding categories like Islamic, Indian, or Chinese medicine as the myths invented by modern (Western) historiography in the aftermath of the colonial and post-colonial periods, the book proposes to bridge the gap between Western and 'non-Western' medicines, by opening a new perspective in medical historiography in which 'modern medicine' becomes an integral part of the history of medicine in non-European countries.
Through essays and case studies of medical modernisation, this volume particularly calls into question the categorisation of 'Western' and 'non-Western' medicine and challenges the idea that modern medicine could only be developed in its Western birthplace and then imported to and practised as such to the rest of the world. Against the concept of a 'project' of modernisation at the heart of the history of modern medicine in non-Western countries, the chapters of this book describe the 'processes' of medical development by highlighting the active involvement of local elements. The book's emphasis is thus on the 'modernisation' or 'construction' of modern medicine rather that on the diffusion of 'modern medicine' as an ontological entity beyond the West.

Hormoz Ebrahimnejad is Wellcome Trust Lecturer in history at the School of Humanities, University of Southampton. His current research interests in the history of medicine covers issues such as relationship between medicine and power, impacts of institutions on scientific developments, emergence of medical profession and hospital institutions and their relation with medical knowledge in both medieval and modern periods. His publications include Medicine, Public Health and the Qajar State: Patterns of Medical Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Iran.