Click here for more...

(ARCHIVE) Vol. XVIII No. 11, september 16-30, 2008

Of Armenians, coffee and hospitals

A note to readers

1. This is a voluntary effort to compile and bring to light professional research that goes on in Madras (now Chennai) and elsewhere that relates to the rich and chequered history of Madras. The earnest hope is that this feature will stimulate residents of Madras to take up further studies taking leads from the references listed. This feature will not be regular; I will offer it only as I find time in between my work responsibilities. Continuation of this feature, however, will depend on reader ­response.

Searching for historical information on Madras? Here’s help on hand in a new column, LITERATURE ON MADRAS (an annotated bibliography), compiled by Dr. A. Raman, Orange, New South Wales, Australia.

2. This feature is only a compilation. Brief summaries have been included by simplifying the abstracts (without altering the intent and meaning conveyed by the author[s]) for the benefit of non-professional readership. Views expressed are that of the authors and/or editors.

3. In this feature, the term ‘Madras’ would not only refer to the city of Madras, but may also refer to the Presidency of Madras as it was under the British Raj, and Pondicherry.

4. Citations are presented following the style in professional scientific citations, in the order: name(s) of authors or editors (in bold), year of publication (in brackets), full title of the article, full name of the journal (in italics), volume number (in bold), and finally, the pagination. If the reproduced file be from the Internet, then the web page details are supplied. A tentative classification of subjects – enabling reading comfort – has been attempted; however a caveat is that some of the cited details may spill over into another section.

5. Should any one be interested in getting full papers, he/she needs to approach either local libraries or the authors referred to therein. NOT ME.

Trade/business history

Bhattacharya B (2008) Making money at the blessed place of Manila: Armenians in the Madras–Manila trade in the eighteenth century. Journal of Global History 3, 1–20.

According to Bhattacharya, Madras emerged as an alternative to New Julfa (the Armenian quarter of Isphahan, Iran) from the beginning of the XVIII Century. This paper focuses on one particular trade route, from Madras to Manila, in that Century. The Philippines attracted Spanish American silver, which was then pumped into various regional economies of Asia – China and, in particular, India – in the shape of investment. A Spanish ban on European shipping in Manila made Armenians (and Indians) indispensable partners for European trade with Manila.

Science history

Kochhar R.K. (1994) Secondary tools of empire: Jesuit men of science in India. In: Discoveries, Missionary Expansion and Asian Culture (edited by T.R. DeSouza). Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, India. pages 175–183.

Refers to the geographical exploration of Hindustan (North India) undertaken by the French Jesuit Fr. Claude Stanislaus Boudier. Also mentions that d’Anville used Boudier’s value for the latitude of Madras in preference to any other.

Saravanan V. (2004) Colonialism and coffee plantations: Decline of environment and tribals in Madras Presidency during the nineteenth century. Indian Economic & Social History Review, 41, 465-488.

Colonial establishment of coffee plantations disturbed the self-subsistent traditional tribal system, damaged the ecology, and resulted in environmental decline in the Shevaroy hills of Madras Presidency in the XIX Century. The colonial administration was least concerned about the tribal people’s customary rights to forest resources, and their traditional administrative and judicial systems. The means adopt­ed to set up coffee plantations in the hills/forests to favour the British planters led to the disintegration of the age-old tribal sociocultural system and their forest-oriented economy. In the process of commercia­lisation, the colonial policy refused to accord due importance to ecology and environment as well as to the sustainable livelihood of the tribal communities.

Social history

Singer M. (1971) Beyond tradition and modernity in Madras. Comparative Studies in Society and History [Special Issue on Tradition and Modernity (April 1971)] 13, 160–195.

Singer’s observations in India, and particularly in Madras City, over an extended period beginning in 1954, have led Singer to join the ranks of those disaffected with the classical theory of ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ societies. After World War II, when Redfield became interested in China, India, and the comparative study of civilisations, he began to ­explore, in collaboration with historians of civilisation, the processes of cultural change in societies with literate ‘Great Traditions’. Singer was particularly interested in exploring the question of what happens to the ‘Great Tradition’ of Sanskritic Hinduism in a contemporary ‘heterogenetic’ urban centre such as Madras City.

Medical history

Hodges S. (2005) ‘Looting’ the lock hospital in colonial Madras during the famine years of the 1870s. Social History of Medicine 18, 379–398.

The history of the Madras Government’s ‘lock hospitals’ in the famine years of the 1870s demonstrates that, although the operation of colonial lock hospitals was primarily coercive and punitive, their inmates regularly interrupted and reconfigured the hospitals’ functioning in unexpected ways. While shrewd and successful prostitutes incorporated the Indian Contagious Diseases Acts’ (1864 and 1868) compulsory registration and regular incarceration into their business practices, destitute women incorporated lock hospitals into their strategies for survival and transformed these institutions into asylums of relief. Women enrolled lock hospitals into their own distinct regimes of governance just as they were caught up within others.

Somasundaram O (2008) Private psychiatric care in the past: with special reference to Chennai. Indian Journal of Psychiatry 50, 67–69.

Somasundaram has described the Madras ‘madhouse’ managed by Connolly and Dalton, before the start of the Madras Lunatic Asylum in 1871. Assessments on the legal aspects of mental asylums are available.

Harrison M. (1998) Public health and medicine in British India: an assessment of the British contribution. Paper delivered to the Liverpool Medical History Society on 5 March 1998. (www.lmi.org.uk/medical_ society/10/10Harrison.pdf)

Includes several references to Madras medical history.

Ernst W. (1998) The Madras lunatic asylum in the early nineteenth century. Bulletin of the ­Indian Institute of History of ­Medicine, Hyderabad. 28: 13–30.

Early clarification of authority structures in asylum management and curtailment of petty corruption were key ­features in the development of the Madras Lunatic Asylum. Although the development of the Madras Asylum in the early XIX Century had been relatively free of controversy compared with those started in Bengal, it possessed some distinct features. It was finally closed down almost exactly a century after its inauguration, and its inmates were moved to new premises.

Pati B. & Harrison M. (eds) (2000) Health, medicine and ­empire: perspectives on Colonial India. Sangam Books, London (UK) and Hyderabad (India).

One chapter refers to the Madras lunatic asylum.

Lang S. (2005) Drop the ­demon dai: Maternal mortality and the state in Colonial ­Madras, 1840–1875. Social ­History of Medicine 18: 357–378.

Midwifery and women’s health in XIX Century India has concentrated on the role of medical missionaries and on voluntary organisations. Lang’s study of Government records from Madras Presidency ­suggests that there was consi­derable State interest in the ­issue from the 1840s. This took the form of running and supporting a major ‘lying-in’ hospital in Madras and smaller ‘lying-in’ wards at provincial dispensaries, to train midwives to work throughout the Presidency. State action was heavily influenced by revulsion at the methods of the dai – the traditional Indian birth attendant. The strategy was to replace her with a class of Indian trained midwives who would operate within the community.

 

In this issue

Historic Gokhale Hall...
A showcase for Plan...
From yesterday to today...
Of Armenians, coffee...
Historic residences of...
Other stories in this issue...
 

Our Regulars

Short 'N' Snappy
a-Musing
Our Readers Write
Quizzin' with Ram'nan
Dates for your Diary
 

Archives

Back to current issue...