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The role and contribution of philanthropy to the institutionalization and professionalization of modern medicine and public health in western societies has been well documented. From the late eighteenth century, private philanthropy in Britain responded to the threats and challenges to health arising from an expanding overseas commerce and trade, growth of its port cities, industrialization, migration, and urbanization of its manufacturing towns by establishing hospitals, dispensaries, infirmaries, and lunatic asylums (Jenkinson, Michael, & Russell, 1994; McCord & Purdue, 2007). Even in precolonial India, there was charity that involved individual and religious alms giving or constructing places of worship (Sundar, 2000; Ranganathan, 2012). The British colonial government, however, viewed this traditional mode of charity as superstitious, irrational, ostentatious, ritualistic, and wasteful and believed it encouraged sloth and idleness among Indians. They introduced a new ethic to...

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Kavadi, S.N. (2014). Philanthropy, Medicine, and Health in Colonial India. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10087-1

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    Philanthropy, Medicine, and Health in Colonial India
    Published:
    02 April 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10087-2

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    Philanthropy, Medicine, and Health in Colonial India
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    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10087-1