Book Review - Radial Spirits by Nandini Patwardhan

Radical Spirits: India's First Woman Doctor and Her American Champions by Nandini Patwardhan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since childhood Anandi Joshee nee Yamuna always had an inquisitive spark in her. This spark was fanned by her father who encouraged her to study. This glowing spark was then fuelled by her husband Gopal. He was her bulwark against social ostracism – for it was unthinkable in those days for a Brahmin woman to study. His support extended to letting her go to America on her own for medical studies. Schizophrenically,

One night, things came to a head. In the middle of tutoring, Anandi begged to be let out of the lesson and Gopal lost his temper. He beat her with a stick until she was black and blue.

However, it was her limitless drive and will-power that made her persist in studying medicine in a strange land with its freezing weather and a poor availability of vegetarian food. Another anchor was her American sponsor, Theodocia who lovingly cared for her a debilitating illness ravaged her the budding doctor. The book talks about her interpersonal relationships but fails to detail her clinical training. All we get to know are some details about her thesis

“Obstetrics among the Aryan Hindoos.” The thesis was an exposition of Hindu beliefs and practices covering everything from the earliest signs of pregnancy to diseases of the new-born. The thesis described the use of turmeric combined with sesame oil to cleanse a woman’s body immediately after the delivery, and to massage the new-born. Other ingredients mentioned for medicinal use were black mustard powder, orris root, honey, opium, asafoetida, long pepper and its root, dry ginger, and milk. The minerals used were iron, “copper sulph,” “zinc sulph,” and mercury. Anandi wrote about how the new mother was forbidden to drink milk or water that had not been previously boiled. The reason for this was based on the Ayurvedic knowledge of bacteriology: The ancients strongly believed that “the atmosphere is densely populated by germs of infinite variety and minuteness and can never be seen by the human eye. These can be destroyed by heat and fumes of certain resins, hence the boiling process.” Anandi’s thesis summarized diagnostic techniques available to the physician using the physical senses of touch, hearing, vision, taste, smell, and speech. Of these, the most interesting one was taste—not the patient’s or the physician’s, but that of red ants. It was used to detect excess sugar in the body: Taste will decide the constituents of the urinary secretion as the red ants are found to be very fond of sugar.

Despite the shortcomings, this inspiring book should be mandatory reading for aspiring Indian doctors, most of who are disgracing our noble profession and turning it into a business – with seats being purchased for undergraduate and postgraduate studies for tens of lakhs of rupees.
As an aside, despite all British claims for improving the lot of Indians during their Raj, here are the observation of the American ambassador Col. Hans Mattson

I said that India is better ruled now than ever before; but that is not saying much, for it ought to be ruled still better and more in the interest of the natives. The ruling class: India has civil service with a vengeance, the office-holding class being even more arrogant, proud and independent than the titled nobility. They rule the country with an iron hand, regard it simply as a field for gathering in enormous salaries, and after twenty-five years’ service they return to England with a grand India pension.

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