The history of medicine in India represents a significant trajectory of both resistance and accommodation of various medical forms of knowledge, often associated with changes in the ruling state, its ideologies and imperatives. In this context, it is not surprising that nineteenth- and twentieth-century India was marked by a series of major challenges faced by protagonists of Indian medicine, nationalists, reformers, and influential patrons and elites. What these challenges were, who they were managed by and how they were best managed are some of the questions that often loom large in debates on medicine in colonial India. In discussing Indian medicine under British rule, thus, two main themes emerge: first, the existence of influential local elites, intellectuals, nationalists and reformers, as patrons supporting the medical system; and second, the challenges posed as a result of shifting policies, especially following the implementation of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms in 1919. While indigenous patrons, although initially hesitant, appropriated indigenous medical knowledge, sometimes reconstructing and reassessing it, power and authority remained issues of concern for protagonists of both Indian and western systems in relation to the Reforms, for the new system of governance allowed more freedom in the hands of Indian ministers to take charge of health issues.

The late nineteenth century witnessed the deployment of science and medicine as signifying cultural authority, forging new alliances alongside the emergence of new associations that enabled the reinforcement of scientific activities, through a small section of western-educated Indians.