Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Multiplicity, Practice Ontology, and Looping Effects
Unani and Traditional Medicine in South Asia
The Biomedicalization of Traditional Medicines
Theory vs. Practice?
From the Topic to Fieldwork
Conducting Fieldwork
Sources and Methods
1. A System of Medicine?
Government Institutions and Official Publications
The Prescription of Drugs
The National Formulary of Unani Medicine and the Unani Pharmacopoeia of India
Doctors or Hakims?
The Old Ḵẖandānī Hakim as Embodiment of Unani Knowledge
The Cult of Eminent Hakims
The Unani Fraternity
Textual Sources of Authority
The Systematization of (Unani) Medicine: Historical Overview
Enactments and Loopings
Becoming a Hakim
Institutionalized Training and its Shortcomings
Family Lineages and Secret Knowledge
The Regulation of Practice
Qualified and Registered Practitioners
BUMS as Second Choice
Practicing ‘Allopathy’ with a Unani Degree
Individualized Treatments and Clinical Falsification
Pulse Diagnosis and the Limits of Standardization
Exclusive Knowledge and the Pursuit of Originality
Standardized Drugs
Variations of Medicine and Multiplicity
3. Beyond Humouralism
The Concept of Medicine and the Principles of Human Physiology
‘What is First’
Diseases
Treatments and Prevention
Observation and Questioning
Pulse Examination
‘It is Written in the Books that Urine Speaks to the Hakims’
Therapeutic Practices
Food and Health
Lifestyle and Regimen
Unani Medicines
Humoralism and Looping Effects
A Case of Biomedicalization?
Using Modern Diagnostic Methods
Diagnostic Aids
Proof of Effectiveness
Biomedical Technologies?
On Matter and Qualities
Combining Unani and Biomedical Knowledge
5. Science and the Quest for Acceptance and Recognition
Science as Means for Recognition
The Beginnings of Modern Scientific Research on Unani
The Government’s Agenda for Unani Research and Global Health Policy
A ‘New Unani’: The Unani Pharmaceutical Industry and the Global CAM Market
Clinical Trials
‘The Method Has Changed but Not the Principles’
Is Translation Possible?
6. Unani Medicine and Muslims in India
Historical Background
Unani, Muslims, and Urdu
Medical Communalism
Unani and T̤ibb-i Nabavī
Unani Medicine and Islam
Ḥijāmah in the Context of Unani
The Revival of Prophetic Medicine in the Context of Unani
Summary and Reflexions for Future Engagement
Bibliography