The history and practice of medicine in the region poses peculiar problems for Southasia. The region has a well-documented history of several canons of medicine (ayurveda, siddha, unani, as well as contemporary cosmopolitan medicine). Unfortunately, these canons, which could have provided a unified system, are divided into separate fields of knowledge, and often engage in acrimonious turf wars.
By the middle of the last millennium, the traditional Ayurvedic system had been well-established, and the skills of the surgeons and knowledge about herbs and medicine were renowned. Medicine from Southasia formed a significant part of the trade between the Subcontinent and Europe. Also well established was Unani medicine, based on the teachings of Hakim Ibn-sina and Rhazes, who were also influenced by the Indian medical teachings of Sushruta and Charaka. Across the Himalaya, knowledge of Ayurvedic medicine had been carried far by Buddhist practitioners, and was helped by the fact that much of it had been transcribed into Chinese and Tibetan (thus freeing it from the errors of oral tradition).
Until the 19th century, there was little to differentiate Southasian from European medicine. The East India Company employed large numbers of local physicians and surgeons because of their considerable medicinal skill and knowledge, and their proven effectiveness in treating wounds and infections on the battlefield. However, the delivery of this care to the populace at large was inadequate. The knowledge was confined to guilds or families, the provision of care subservient to religious and economic distinctions of rank and privilege, and thus, the masses seldom had access to healthcare.
By the time the British introduced Western medicine to Southasia, during the 19th century, technological advances (the discovery of the microscope, for example) had displaced the observational nature of Galenic medicine, and replaced it with a more experimental approach that was seen as more objective and consistent. Medicine was, thus, seen as a force that could catapult a society into modernity. When the first dissection of a human body was performed by a Brahmin student in Calcutta in 1835, the event was greeted by a ceremonial gun salute, to welcome the beginning of the end of orthodoxy, and the entry of modern science into medicine.