The Indian Body and Unani Medicine: Body History as Entangled History
Keyword(s):
The Body
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AbstractCultures, and especially medical cultures, did not develop in isolation from one another, indebted only to their own dynamics, but in constant interchange. A history of the body hence can only be written as a history of entanglements. The article elaborates this thesis with reference to Unani medicine, a cluster of medical systems still today widely in use among the Muslims (and a good number of Hindus) of South Asia. The history of Unani medicine shows that the Indian body is the site of a long tradition of multiple influences and entanglements, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Central Asian, Western and Ayurvedic.