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The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 3, Part 5: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India

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It is a little ironic that in some histories of science throughout the world, you can find greater coverage of India before the British arrived, than during the colonial era. Partly, perhaps, it may be from a desire to describe the purely Indian contributions to science.

But what happened in science, engineering and medicine when the British ruled India has been relatively neglected, compared to both the pre and post colonial eras. Arnold attempts to redress this deficit here. He describes how indigenous Indian scientists and doctors learned from and also influenced the British.

Especially in the area of tropical medicine. From their African colonies, the British also had experiences in this field. But India had much higher population densities and a more highly developed infrastructure than in Africa. Plus the Indians had perhaps better, though incomplete, knowledge of solutions.

It is still surprising that up till now, there has been little scholarly work done on this subject. One might speculate that previous British authors might have concentrated on science done in Britain itself. And Indian authors might have wanted, even if only subconsciously, to deprecate the colonial period.