188 chapter
(an ambiguous “we” that could refer to people in Kerala but could be broader)
conceive of our health today, and this kind of quick repair is a specialty of
allopathy in the eyes of people in Kerala, a medical system that is especially
attuned to contemporary work regimes and time constraints. In other words,
Ajit laments that all “we” try to do nowadays is regain functionality.
Explanations and Implications
Th e abrasive eff ects of allopathic psychiatric treatments and the less uncom-
fortable, and occasionally pleasant, eff ects of ayurvedic treatments reported
by current and former patients of these therapies may be due to ayurveda
re inventing itself as a gentler alternative in the face of competition with all-
opathy. But this reinvention may in turn be enabled by epistemological and
methodological orientations that inform these medical practices.
One could argue that allopathic medicine “thinks” in terms of disease enti-
ties, that behind every disease there is an identifi able cause which, if removed,
would constitute a cure. Diseases have names such as cancer, malaria, depres-
sion or Attention Defi cit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that confer essen-
tial, individual identities for affl ictions. Some diseases, such as malaria or HIV,
can be clearly identifi ed by the presence of a distinct pathogen, but others
such as ADHD or schizophrenia constitute a range on a continuum of behav-
ior that is agreed upon by specialists. Allopathic practitioners are aware that
some diseases do not have an identifi able cause—or they do not have one
yet—and can only be healed by treating symptoms. However, where a cure
is considered possible, a patient may be put through an unpleasant treatment
in an eff ort to destroy a disease entity. Th is approach to “fi ghting” illness is
refl ected in the prolifi c use of war metaphors in biomedical discourse.^16 In fact,
ECT has been described by psychiatrists as “a valued member of the treatment
armamentarium” [my emphasis] for treating mental illness.^17 Th e metaphor
of a war on a pathogen might be embraced, quite understandably, by people
suff ering HIV or malaria, but when the problem is psychological, psychiatric
or spiritual—which allopathic psychiatry increasingly sees as being caused by
biological agents—“attacking” the illness can be painful and problematic.
Ayurvedic medicine does not rely as heavily on the concept of disease enti-
ties. Disease categories exist in ayurveda, but often doctors address a specifi c
constellation of symptoms in a particular patient and treat those particular
symptoms and the humoral disturbances involved, frequently tailoring medi-
cations to particular patients’ symptoms and bodily dispositions. Often, a
patient is seen as someone who has a fever, dizziness and sleeping problems,