Concepts of arthritis in Indiaʹs medical traditions: Ayurvedic and Unani perspectives

Anthropology and other social sciences have not given detailed attention to cultural constructions of arthritic disorders and their place in traditional medical systems. Humoral medicine and its numerous crosscultural variants offer an important perspective on the conceptualization and treatment of arthritis. The present paper provides a descriptive account of rheumatic disorders in Indiaʹs Ayurvedic and Unani medical traditions. Data derive from anthropological fieldwork in the New Delhi metropolitan area and from Ayurvedic and Unani texts and secondary sources. The discussion explores these two traditions together as a polysynthetic field of ideas, practices, and materials, and it highlights their congruent concepts of arthritis and related somatic concepts, etiologies, and treatments. It reveals parallels in the clinical practices of Ayurvedic and Unani practitioners and identifies a broadly shared model of arthritis that circulates between these practitioners and their ethnically diverse patient-clienteles. The paper suggests that this South Asian humoral model provides a framework that may be useful in anthropological studies of arthritis in other humoral traditions.