Medical tourism in India dates from ancient times
People have been traveling to India for medical treatment since the dawn of civilization.
Indian medicine has its roots in the “Vedas,” the historical and spiritual texts of the Aryans who invaded the subcontinent around 1500 B.C. The ancient system of Indian medicine, parts of which are still practiced today, is called Ayurveda, which means “knowledge of life.” It propounds a view of man in his entirety, including the physical, chemical, biological, and spiritual. Health is dependent on the balance of these systems, a view that still informs modern Indian medicine, and is being adopted by Western practice. For example, Ayurveda emphasizes the importance of diet and the interactions of food and drugs with physical and mental systems.
More than that, as stated by Dr. M.S. Rao, “It is to ancient India that we should look for the origin of modern medicine rather than to Greece and Arabia, as has been the tendency so long.” By the time of the Gupta Empire - the Golden Age of India - circa 300 B.C., Ayurveda had been systematized into disciplines recognized today: (1) internal medicine (kayachikitsa); (2) paediatrics (kumarabhritya); (3) psychotherapy (bhutavidya); (4) oto-rhino-laryngology (urdhwanga chikita); (5) general surgery (shalya tantra); (6) toxicology (agada tantra); (7) geriatrics; (8) the science of virility (vajikarana). These were described by the medical masters of the time, Charaka, the physician, and Sushruta, the surgeon.
At the same time that Aristotle was developing the basis for scientific method in the West, it was already well developed in India: (a) direct observation (pratyaksha); (b) testing the validity of observed facts (anumana); (c) analysis of the facts observed (yukti); (d) testimony of experts (aptopadesha). Statistics were utilized to determine factual knowledge. Medical education was formally provided in great universities including Takshashila and Nalanda in north India. There, students learned the use of forceps, scalpels, trocars, syringes, and other tools to perform operations, such as anal fistula, tonsillectomy, amputations and excisions, couching of cataract, obstetric procedures, venesection, ligation of blood vessels, trephining of the skull and eye operations. Smallpox vaccination was practiced, and the importance of sterilization of wounds was understood. Indeed, physicians under the Guptas were even licensed, so to speak; before undertaking the practice of medicine or surgery, the medical graduate had to obtain the permission of the king, as head of state, after satisfying him that the intending practitioner had been fully trained and qualified. All of this was 1500 years before similar understandings and methods were had in the West.
India became a center of trade between East and West with the establishment of the Harappan Civilization as early as 3000 BC. By the time of the Gupta Empire, it was a magnet for traders and pilgrims from around the world. Seeking spices, jewels, cotton, and ivory, they also learned and spread Indian religion, including the physical and mental system of meditation known as yoga, and its sciences, especially the numeric system adopted by the Arabs, and its advanced astronomy and medicine. The latter of these were brought to the Greeks by Alexander. And India, of course, was the goal of Columbus in 1492. Ever since, it has been the destination of people seeking spiritual and physical healing, from the Beatles to today’s medical tourists.
Invasions, wars, and the spread of Hindu ritual and the Brahman prohibition of touching bodies, gradually erased much of the advanced knowledge of Indian sciences, much as the fall of Rome and the spread of Christianity led to the loss of Greco-Roman knowledge. But the Vaidyas - practitioners of Ayurveda - remained, and as the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British arrived and colonized, they brought their doctors and ideas of medicine, which spread and blended with traditional methods such as herbalism. Modern Indian medicine began with the British Quarantine Act of 1825, which began the public health movement in India. Medical colleges were started in 1835 at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.
After independence in 1947, the health of the nation was made a priority by the new government. Hospital beds were increased from 73,000 in 1946 to 238,000 in 1963, and dispensaries were doubled in the same period to 14,000. Nearly 4,200 Primary Health Centers were established in rural areas. Since then, five-year plans have given priorities in matters of health to: (1) provisioning of water supply and sanitation; (2) control of malaria; (3) preventive health care of the rural population; (4) health services for mothers and children; (5) education and training and health education; (6) self-sufficiency in drugs and equipment; (7) family planning and population control.
Today India is a leader in innovative health approaches for impoverished rural areas. The fine universities and modern infrastructure established by the British Raj have been brought into the 21st century by the modernization programs of India that have also made it a world leader in computing, communications, and production. The result is a medical system combining the best of high technology, advanced education, ancient knowledge, and Eastern philosophy. And India is again a magnet for those seeking Ayurveda, the knowledge of life.
